IOSH Magazine September 2019

Lawrence Webb

Learning from Grenfell

Construction safety

Costain’s Group SHE strategy director

Building a Safer Future report proposals

Creating a fire-safe working culture

Safety, health and wellbeing in the world of work

September 2019

ioshmagazine.com

TRICKS OF THE TRADE How magic can be used to inspire a safer workplace

The first choice for safety professionals.

The NCRQ Diploma in Applied Health and Safety.

The most popular health and safety diploma in the UK. www.ncrq.org.uk More learners enrolled on the NCRQ Diploma in Applied Health and Safety than the NEBOSH National Diploma in the 12 months ending 31/03/19. Source: SQA ncrq.org.uk/verify

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10 highlights you won’t want to miss at IOSH 2019 Inspirational ideas for creating a healthy workplace with wellbeing specialist, motivational speaker and A Great Day at the Office author Dr John Briffa

A showcase of startling innovations in virtual reality and AI to manage everything from fire safety to ergonomics

From Afghanistan and piracy off the Somali coast to Arctic challenges and spy thrillers, with celebrated journalist and novelist Frank Gardner

Advice from the top on what it takes to become a respected leader in health and safety at work

Expert panellists revealing how safety and health professionals can maximise their influence in an organisation

Getting the latest thinking on risk profiling and management from some of the leading experts in safety and health

Tackling at a strategic level the leading causes of sickness absence

Finding answers to the key questions on managing psychosocial risk and promoting positive mental health at work

Being part of the conversation on health and safety in sustainability and the debate on leading vs lagging indicators

The IOSH Careers Zone returning in our bustling exhibition hall, with tips and tricks to take that next step up the ladder

For the latest conference details, visit www.ioshconference.com 2 SEPTEMBER 2019

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19

16–17 September 2019 | ICC, Birmingham

For the practitioners, the leaders and the innovators in safety and health IOSH 2019 is the UK’s number one conference this year for safety and health professionals. After receiving unprecedented interest from across the profession and business, we’ve been able to pack the two days with unrivalled content to inform, inspire and invigorate A conference tailored for you Your time is precious, so each day of IOSH 2019 will have a sharp focus, giving you a clear choice between investing in a one-day or two-day pass

On day one

On day two

Track sessions will enhance your understanding of the key topic areas of safety, health and wellbeing – and give you practical advice on how to manage the risks

It’s all about the latest thinking and insight into leadership, strategy and innovation to help you shape a world-beating safety and health culture and gain that competitive edge

In addition, we’ve created tailored programmes for different sectors, to help you decide which sessions are relevant for you

Check out our conference website and make your choice Get involved in the discussion #IOSH2019 or follow @IOSH_conference EVE0647.45/140819/IM

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Comment Official magazine of

The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) is the world’s leading professional body for people responsible for safety and health in the workplace.

Published by Redactive Publishing Ltd Level 5, 78 Chamber Street, London E1 8BL +44 (0) 20 7880 6200 Acting editor Nick Warburton +44 (0) 20 7324 2725 nick.warburton@redactive.co.uk

W

e can all learn valuable lessons from others to improve the way we work. One of our regular contributors, Bridget Leathley, has shared some fascinating insights from other professions through her “learning from” series.

Advertising Display sales +44 (0) 20 7880 7613 ioshdisplay@redactive.co.uk Recruitment sales +44 (0) 20 7880 7662 ioshjobs@redactive.co.uk Advertisement production Jane Easterman +44 (0) 20 7880 6248 jane.easterman@redactive.co.uk Publishing Director Aaron Nicholls Redactive aims to provide authoritative and accurate information at all times. Its publications are, however, for guidance only and are not an official information source. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the publisher and editor.

For changes to your address, please contact IOSH membership team on membership@iosh.com or 0116 257 3198.

ISSN 2396-7447

© IOSH 2019

IOSH Magazine is printed by ISO 14001 certified printers and despatched in oxo-degradable polywrap. Printed by Warners Midlands plc, The Maltings, Manor Lane, Bourne, PE10 9PH

Over the past three years, she has looked at a diverse range of professions, including behavioural economists, quality managers and, most recently, expert witnesses. But what can OSH practitioners learn from magicians? As our cover feature reveals, a surprising amount, and it’s all fascinating stuff.

Rubens Filho, director of magic at Abracademy, and one of the magicians interviewed for the article (see p 25), suggests that magic opens minds and shifts perspectives. As he argues, this can be a critical part of moving an organisational culture.

“If OSH professionals can be more curious, innovative and confident – therefore more magical – they are likely to have a much a greater impact in the businesses where they work,” he says.

Another magician, Dr Gustav Kuhn, who has been involved with the Wellcome Collection exhibition “Smoke and Mirrors: the psychology of magic”, a free event that runs in London until 15 September, adds that magic exploits cognitive loopholes, and this has an important cross-over into health and safety.

As Kuhn explains: “If you’re not aware of those loopholes, it’s very easy to blame people for mistakes. Awareness of the loopholes might help in designing systems that are more resilient to error.”

Readers only have to thumb through the prosecutions we have covered over the years to see how important it is for companies to put sufficient safeguards in place as a vital measure to prevent accidents.

But raising awareness of the “blame culture” that can be prevalent in some businesses is only one of the “tricks” that magicians can demonstrate to the OSH audience.

Ivor Smith, one-third of Fifth Dimension, a management training company that delivers inspirational sessions to the business world, shows how magic can be used to remind OSH professionals about the risk of complacency in the workplace and why hazard reporting should be actively encouraged.

Employees are not always comfortable challenging colleagues’ unsafe behaviour, particularly if that person happens to be their boss. There is a tendency to put unquestionable trust in people we see as being experts.

Fortunately, there are many examples of businesses that do actively encourage employees to speak up if they feel something is not right. Take ITV and its Leading Risk programme (see our case study: bit.ly/2HQSSFs), which encourages junior staff on productions to raise concerns when they have them.

I hope the feature (and the rest of this magazine) sprinkles a bit of magic around you and inspires you to inspire others to work more safely.

Nick Warburton Acting editor

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Contents September 2019 In focus

p7 pXX

News 6

PC’s XXX £1m fine for fatal piling operations crush XXX Clancy Docwra failed to inform all site operatives about the control measures required of exclusion zones

pXX

7

Clancy Docwra’s £1.1m penalty over fatal excavator attachment strike UK government announces policy review on alcohol interlocks to curb drink-driving

XXX p11

Out pXX of the Crisis XXX

9

Events co fined £161k over unsafe lifting operation injury

XXX

Andrew Sharman outlines the 14 principles in W Edwards Deming’s 1982 classic to help leaders transform their business XXX

Construction trio fined after director blown off roof

8

Singapore records lowest rate of workplace fatalities since 2006

Concrete producer fined £400k after welder lost four fingers during unsafe lift

Automotive firm fined £1m after explosion injures two workers 9

p17 pXX

7

Chernobyl XXX Tim XXX Marsh on Sky Atlantic’s terrifying drama and the dangers of cutting corners on safety to save money

Property firm and director fined over death of inexperienced tree feller Worker crushed in poorly guarded machine

11 Rock drilling company and director sentenced over multiple HAVS cases

p18

Breaking ground

IOSH News

How Costain’s decision to start harm elimination at the design process has led to some radical thinking

12 Stage set for IOSH 2019

13

Health-related job loss consultation IOSH Council election results 13 Hazard-identifying app can help designers create safer buildings Research on construction workers’ understanding of occupational health risks 14 IOSH Global Working developments in Asia

12

Partnership to bolster Nigerian OSH standards IOSH course translations 15 IOSH shortlisted for awards Column: Gary Latta, EHS lead, PepsiCo UK and Ireland Fire evacuation complacency survey Two new IOSH fellows Student events discount

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Features

Regulars

18 Leader interview

Columns 9 Ann Jones, Welsh

Lawrence Webb, Costain, on trialling new incident investigation training and eliminating harm wherever possible

Assembly Member

11 Andrew Sharman 16 Events

25 Learning from magicians

17 Reviews Chernobyl

How the principles behind illusion can help OSH professionals create a safer, healthier workplace

52 Lexicon R is for risk homeostasis

53 Off duty

30 Out of sight is not out of mind

25

Why line managers need training, development and support to ensure lone workers are protected

COVER STORY

54 Recruitment

30

38

Fire and evacuation special 38 Fit for the future

Alex Guild, process safety team lead, Chevron, and flight instructor

47

50

Building a Safer Future report proposals

47 On the front burner Why a fire-safe working culture should be a priority for construction

50 All ďŹ red up Using virtual reality technology in training

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News

For the latest IOSH news and views, visit ioshmagazine.co.uk

Construction trio fined after director was blown off roof A construction company and two roofing contractors have been ordered to pay almost £400,000 in fines and costs after the director of one of the firms fell 11 m when he was blown off a roof during Storm Doris in 2017.

Bowmer and Kirkland, Advanced Roofing and JKW Roofing Services were working on a new three-storey teaching block at Abbotsfield School for Boys in Hillingdon, west London, when the accident happened on 23 February 2017.

Westminster Magistrates’ Court was told that, because of 94 mph winds, there were several warnings on site and many activities had been suspended.

However, the roof works continued until early that afternoon when the director of JKW Roofing, John Whitham, was blown off the roof along with freestanding A-frame barriers and stacks of insulation.

The 52-year-old sustained severe injuries to his pelvis, back and leg.

Bowmer and Kirkland was

Roof work continued despite strong winds

the principal contractor. The roofing works were contracted to Advanced Roofing, which subcontracted some of the works on the main building to JKW Roofing.

An investigation carried out by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found all three companies had failed to properly assess the risk of high winds during work at height.

It said they had taken an “informal approach to assessing weather conditions

Events co fined £161k over unsafe lifting operation injury A Coventry-based company that manufactures stands for exhibitions has been fined £161,000 after an employee was knocked unconscious and sustained a broken collar bone during the unsafe lift of a park home chassis.

Coventry Magistrates’ Court was told how employees at Sovereign Exhibitions & Events were moving the chassis, a frame that supports a small building such as a mobile home, through a doorway at the firm’s Woodcorner Farm site when the incident happened on 5 July 2018.

The frame was 4.27 m wide but the doorway it was being manoeuvred through was only

3.96 m wide. To angle the chassis through the narrow opening, employees had to tilt the sides of the frame, which was being manoeuvred by two forklift trucks, one at each end.

The frame slipped from the forks, rebounded off the floor and struck the employee on the shoulder. The force lifted him off his feet and flung him backwards 2 m into the building wall.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found the lift had not been properly planned, organised or carried out safely. Employees had been left to devise their own method of moving the chassis.

The court was told that

which was not in line with industry standards”.

Bowmer and Kirkland pleaded guilty to breaching reg 4(3) of the Work at Height Regulations. It was fined £350,000 and ordered to pay £6,190 in costs.

Advanced Roofing was handed a £29,300 fine plus £6,188 costs after it admitted breaching reg 4(3) of the same regulations.

JKW Roofing, which pleaded guilty to the same breach, was handed a 12-month conditional discharge and ordered to pay £6,160 in costs.

HSE inspector Gabriella Dimitrov said: “If a suitable safe system of work had been in place prior to the incident, the life-changing injuries sustained

by Mr Whitham could have been prevented.”

Sovereign Exhibitions & Events had failed to properly assess the risks and take simple measures to ensure the tasks were carried out safely.

Sovereign Exhibitions & Events of Units 1-3 Arley Industrial Park, Colliers Way, Arley, Coventry, West Midlands, pleaded guilty to breaching s 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act. The company must also pay £1,345 costs.

HSE inspector Christopher Maher said: “Those in control of work have a responsibility to devise safe methods of working and to provide the necessary information, instruction and training to their workers in the safe system of working.

“Since the incident, the company has widened the opening to allow for safe movement of the park home chassis.”

In Short NZ juice co’s faulty machine penalty The Homegrown Juice Company was fined NZ$367,500 (£193,334) last month after a worker died while operating a faulty machine in 2017. The worker was cleaning a bottle-filling machine when her arm was drawn into the rotating equipment. It continued to rotate and she died at the scene. The machine was not fitted with an interlock, which would have prevented it from starting while guarding was open. bit.ly/2OVvava

£40k fine for skylight injury

SolarUK must pay £40,000 after a worker fell around 4 m through an unprotected skylight while installing solar panels on a farm workshop in Ninfield, East Sussex in July 2018. He sustained multiple and long-term injuries to his wrist. SolarUK had failed to plan or supervise the work to ensure access to hazardous areas was prevented. SolarUK pleaded guilty to breaching reg 4(1) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005. bit.ly/2Z8xbE0

Worker’s hand crushed clearing baler A recycling centre in Manchester has been fined £13,000 after a worker’s hand was crushed in an unsafe baler in October 2018.

He was trying to remove a piece of plastic that had blocked the hopper while the machine was switched on. He removed the guard and leaned in, activating the ram. The Wrapp Recycling employee sustained serious crush injuries to his hand and lost two fingers. The recycler pleaded guilty to breaching s 2(1) of the HSW Act. bit.ly/31F1p3h

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News

Clancy Docwra’s £1.1m penalty over fatal excavator attachment strike Construction giant Clancy Docwra has been fined £1m after a site operative on its Docklands Light Railway site in Stratford, east London was fatally struck by an excavator mounted vibrator (EMV).

Daniel Walsh, who was site supervisor and the person operating the 35-tonne excavator at the time of the incident, has also been sentenced.

Southwark Crown Court was told that Kevin Campbell, the lead supervisor during the piling operations on the site, was part of a team undertaking night work on 2 March 2014 when he was struck by the EMV, a sheet piling attachment.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that Campbell had been disconnecting lifting accessories from a metal pile that had just been extracted from the ground

when he was crushed against a concrete wall a short distance away. He died from his injuries.

Another site operative working directly next to him narrowly missed being struck by the heavy equipment.

The HSE found that principal contractor Clancy Docwra had not put appropriate control measures in place. The construction firm failed to inform all site operatives of the specific risks they faced when carrying out tasks at the site and the control measures required of exclusion zones.

HSE inspector Darren Alldis said: “The importance of communication and the mandatory use of excavator safety levers were simple actions that should have been put in place and their effectiveness monitored.”

Clancy Docwra, of Coppermill Lane, Harefield, Middlesex,

Kevin Campbell was crushed against a concrete wall at the Docklands Light Railway site

pleaded not guilty to breaching ss 2(1) and 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act. In addition to its £1m fine, the construction firm must pay £108,502 costs.

Daniel Walsh, of Eastcote,

UK government announces policy review on alcohol interlocks to curb drink-driving The UK government is looking at the feasibility of adding the use of alcohol interlocks to drink-driver rehabilitation programmes.

A government statement on road safety plans published in July revealed that the policy review will focus on how to ensure the automatic control systems, which are designed to prevent driving with excess alcohol by requiring the driver to blow into an in-car breathalyser before starting the ignition, are “both accessible and reliable”.

According to the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC), there is already a good body of evidence from several countries that alcohol interlocks cut reoffending rates both during and after participation in a rehabilitation programme.

The ETSC published a review

The device requires the driver to pass a breath test before starting the vehicle

of current approaches in a 2016 report in association with the Netherlands Institute for Road Safety Research (bit.ly/302Fhzy).

Durham Constabulary has

been running a voluntary trial of alcohol interlocks since 2018. It has been working with manufacturer Smart Start, to fit the interlocks on offenders’

Orpington, Kent, pleaded not guilty to breaching s 7(a) of the Health and Safety at Work Act. He was given a six-month custodial sentence, suspended for 12 months, and must pay £15,000 costs.

vehicles on a voluntary basis.

The devices are commonplace in countries such as the US and Denmark. They require the driver to pass a breath test before they can start the vehicle. Each device has a built-in camera to record who is providing the sample of breath.

Data published in early 2019 showed that UK drink-driving deaths in 2017 were at their highest since 2009 (bit.ly/305OCX5).

Department for Transport (DfT) figures showed that between 240 and 330 people were killed in crashes on Britain’s roads in 2017 where at least one driver was over the drink-drive limit. The figure represents 16% of all road deaths.

The DfT spokesperson said that the government was working with industry to develop new roadside breath tests so drinkdrivers could not sober up before being tested. The government published a road safety action plan in July (bit.ly/2M8C2lR).

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News

Concrete producer fined £400k after welder lost four fingers during unsafe lift Hanson Quarry Products Europe has been sentenced after a welder lost four fingers during an unsafe lifting operation.

The use of the forklift truck, chain and O-ring was unsafe

Singapore records lowest rate of workplace fatalities since 2006 Singapore’s workplace fatal injury rate has fallen to its lowest level since 2006, according to the Ministry of Manpower.

Seventeen workers died as a result of workplace accidents in the first half of 2019, the fewest since 2006, when the government ministry first made the national workplace safety and health numbers publicly available.

The latest figure is a slight improvement on last year, when 18 workers died during the same period. There was a total of 41 fatalities in 2018.

Over the past two years, Singapore’s workplace fatal injury rate has been 1.2 per 100,000, a significant drop from the 4.9 per 100,000 in 2004.

The country’s WSH2028 Tripartite Strategies Committee, which has been tasked with developing workplace safety and health over the next ten years, is working to reduce the fatal

injury rate to less than 1 per 100,000 by 2028.

Manpower minister Josephine Teo warned industry at the Workplace Safety and Health Awards at the Resorts World Convention Centre on 30 July that companies had to continue to be diligent as the construction sector readied itself for a series of mega projects, which would rely on a large workforce.

“Building a strong safety culture takes time,” she said.

“Our workplace safety and health improvement was made possible only because our tripartite partners were driven to enhance the livelihood and working conditions of our workers.”

The government minister added that companies should dedicate more resources to new and inexperienced workers, who face a higher risk of injuries, to help them adapt to their work environments.

The accident happened at the concrete producer’s Kings Cross site in London on 27 September 2016 when a large metal gate slipped off the tines of a forklift truck.

Southwark Crown Court was told that the gate was attached to the forklift with a chain on an “O-ring” that was slotted on to the tines with nothing to prevent it sliding off. The gate fell as it was being lifted, slicing the worker’s hand as it fell to the floor.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found the company had failed to plan and supervise the lifting operation to ensure it was safely carried out.

Hanson Quarry Products Europe, part of German building materials supplier HeidelbergCement, admitted breaching reg 8(1) of the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations. It has been fined £400,000 and ordered to pay costs of £11,376.

HSE inspector Jane Wolfenden said: “The use of forklift truck, chain and O-ring was unsafe, putting workers at unnecessary risk. This incident could so easily have been avoided by simply having a competent person plan a safe lifting operation and providing adequate supervision to ensure the lifting operation was carried out safely.”

Automotive firm fined £1m after explosion injures two workers A car and commercial vehicle component manufacturer has been fined £1m for failing to risk-assess its tank cleaning procedure after an explosion at its site in Stonehouse, Gloucestershire, left two workers with “significant” burns.

Two employees at Delphi Diesel Systems were cleaning a component washer’s distillation tank with a flammable chemical on 11 July 2017 when the vapour ignited, triggering an explosion.

Both workers sustained severe injuries; one employee’s burns were so serious that he could not return to work for more than two months, Cheltenham Magistrates’ Court was told.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found there was no risk assessment or safe system of work for using flammable chemicals to clean the distillation tank.

Delphi Diesel Systems pleaded guilty to breaching s 2(1) of the Health and Safety

Two workers were burnt cleaning a tank

at Work Act. Alongside the fine, it was ordered to pay costs of £9,374 on 24 July.

HSE principal inspector Paul Thompson said: “Those in control of work have a responsibility to devise safe systems of work, and to provide the necessary information, instruction and training to their workers in those systems, as well as the substances they use.

“If a suitable safe system of work had been in place prior to the incident, the injuries suffered by the employees could have been prevented.”

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Column

News

Ann Jones AM National Assembly for Wales

Property firm and director fined over death of inexperienced tree feller A property investment company and its director have been fined after an untrained worker was fatally injured when he fell from a tree while carrying out a “specialist task”.

CDF Properties Investment was fined £80,000 and ordered to pay costs of £12,700 in July at Nottingham Crown Court after it pleaded guilty to breaching reg 4(1)(c) of the Work at Height Regulations.

The company’s director, Claudio De Falco, admitted contravening the same regulation and was handed a £40,000 penalty plus £6,350 costs.

De Falco’s friend Dennis Parker, 68, was up a ladder with a chainsaw felling a dead sycamore tree on Ebers Road, Nottingham, on 27 September 2017. He cut a branch, which then swung back and struck him, knocking him onto a rockery 4 m below, The

Nottingham Post reported. He was taken to hospital but died from his injuries two weeks later.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said Parker had not used ropes to anchor himself into the tree. Its investigation found the handyman had not been provided with the correct personal protective equipment, nor had he been trained how to safely operate a chainsaw. In addition, the work had not been properly planned.

HSE inspector Giles Martin said after the hearing: “Using chainsaws on and in trees is a specialised task and should only be carried out by trained and competent people using the right PPE for using the saws and climbing trees.

“Falls from height remain one of the most common causes of work-related fatalities in this country and the risks associated with working at height are well known.”

Worker crushed in poorly guarded machine A Northampton engineering firm has been fined after an operator was crushed while making moulds for a casting machine.

The RSM Castings employee, who has asked to remain anonymous, sustained extensive injuries on 11 April 2018, including a broken neck, back fractures, broken ribs, a fractured shoulder blade, a ruptured spleen, a torn liver, a punctured lung, facial fractures and lost teeth. He has not yet been able to return to work.

Northampton Magistrates’ Court was told that the worker leant into the machine to light the burners when the pattern plate closed on his head and upper body.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found there was inadequate safeguarding on the piece of

The pattern plate closed on the worker

equipment to prevent access between the closing pattern parts.

RSM Castings pleaded guilty to breaching s 11 of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations. It has been fined £32,000 with £1,740 costs.

HSE inspector Neil Ward said: “This case highlights the importance of foundries checking guarding on their machines and not to be complacent about machinery safety.”

The legislation that requires the mandatory fitting of a sprinkler system in all new home build in Wales has been in force since 1 January 2016, making the country the first to introduce this simple yet effective fire safety measure.

The legislative journey began in 2007 after the National Assembly for Wales was granted additional powers. My name came top of the ballot for a Legislative Competence Order (LCO), which allowed for legislation to be drawn up around the original devolution settlement. This process required full scrutiny, at both the House of Commons and the Welsh Assembly, and led to this landmark legal measure.

Although the fitting of a sprinkler system to all new home build should have been straightforward, there was significant political and housebuilders’ opposition, despite evidence showing that sprinklers save lives.

I had to constantly remind assembly members that there was little likelihood that sprinklers would activate when toast was burnt and they would certainly not flood homes.

The odds of a sprinkler system activating without a fire are 16 million to one, so you are more likely to win the jackpot on the lottery.

Throughout the scrutiny The odds of a system stages, it became clear that activating without legislation was required to ensure a fire are 16 million that sprinklers were fitted in all to one new home build.

As a former fire control officer, I drew on the experiences of firefighter colleagues who would often return from a house fire and recall how, despite their efforts, the occupants would face an unsettling time coming to terms with the devastation of a fire.

Sprinklers are another, albeit important, tool in the safety box. Even when there are no fatalities or injuries, the loss of personal effects such as precious family photographs and belongings, the replacement of household items or the rehousing of a family are costly to the public purse.

Before the legislation came into force, fires caused around 20 fatalities a year, many of which were in single figures. It has been interesting to hear those who previously opposed this legislation so vehemently back calls for the introduction of such systems, post-Grenfell.

Community safety has always been important to me. I had campaigned to change the regulations on smoke alarms, replacing battery-operated ones with hard-wired systems. I had also insisted on the installation of sprinkler systems in all new schools and all large shopping malls. The next logical step was home protection.

The legislation ticks many boxes. Not only has it improved residents’ lives but it has also benefited local authorities that pick up the pieces after a fire – for example, rehousing families, redecorating and/or making structural adaptations and providing social care packages.

It also relieves the burden on health services that care for individuals who have sustained injuries and require long-term support. Finally, there are the environmental benefits: preventing air pollution caused by fires and reducing the volumes of water needed by firefighters to contain a fire.

Throughout the legislative journey, I received support from three Welsh Fire & Rescue Services as well as the wider UK Fire Service, the National Fire Chiefs Council, the Fire Brigade Union Officials, the National Fire Sprinkler Network Association, the British Automatic Sprinkler Association and my research team at the National Assembly.

At times I felt we weren’t going to succeed. However, the end goal of saving lives has made me more determined to see this through. The challenge for the rest of the UK is – are you ready to follow Wales?

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News

Rock drilling company and director sentenced over multiple HAVS cases A Devon-based firm that provides services in rock drilling, cliff stabilisation and rock anchors has been fined after three workers were diagnosed with hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS).

Alwyn Griffith Hughes Thomas, director of Celtic Rock Services, was also fined after the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigated the Buckfastleigh company.

Plymouth Magistrates’ Court was told that the employees had developed and reported

symptoms of HAVS but Celtic Rock Services had failed to act.

The workers used tools such as rock drills and jack hammers for cliff stabilisation work, which was often carried out by abseiling down a cliff and using the tools horizontally while working with ropes.

The affected trio began to experience symptoms such as pins and needles and aching hands, in one case since 2000.

After an occupational nurse was employed in 2016, the HAVS problem was identified.

The HSE found that the company’s risk assessment did not identify the actual exposure to vibration and had used out-of-date vibration data.

It also found that there had not been any health surveillance until 2016. Employees were not made aware of HAVS and its symptoms.

Celtic Rock Services pleaded guilty to breaching s 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act and was fined £36,667. It must also pay £3,560 costs.

The firm’s director pleaded

guilty to breaching s 37 of the HSW Act. He was handed a 12-week custodial sentence, suspended for one year, a 12-week curfew and was also ordered to pay £3,560 costs.

HSE inspector Caroline Penwill said that, had the company understood why health surveillance was necessary, it would have ensured that it had the right systems in place to monitor workers’ health and the employees’ conditions would not have been allowed to develop.

The business book club

Andrew Sharman CFIOSH Chief executive, RMS Out of the Crisis W Edwards Deming Considered by many as the “father of quality”, William Edwards Deming said that, for organisations to succeed, they need only two things: commitment, and an ability to open up to new thinking.

After a trip to Japan to observe how the Japanese’s attention to quality, systems and better management helped turn the economy around after the Second World War, the statistician penned Out of the Crisis in 1982 to help with the transformation of the Western/American management style prevalent in the 1970s-80s.

Deming identifies “deadly diseases”’ such as an emphasis on short-term thinking; merit ratings; management by the use of quantitative data only; and, significantly, the lack of constancy of purpose – something prevalent in safety today. As Deming argued: “Outputs cannot be considered without considering the goals they are designed to achieve.”

Or as Simon Sinek states in his book (bit.ly/2Zl9OaR), we must “start with why” we are working on safety.

“Quality” is defined by

Deming as a “concept that has many faces”, which is also true of safety. His measurement of quality is also relevant as being “the interaction between three different participants: the product itself; the user and how they use, install, and maintain the product; and their expectations”.

Deming offers 14 principles for leaders to significantly transform both the quality and the effectiveness of their business: 1. Create constancy of purpose towards the improvement of products and services, with the aim to become competitive and to stay in business 2. Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age.

Management must awaken to the challenge, learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership for change 3. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality.

Eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis by building quality into the product in the first place 4. End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag 5. Improve constantly the

system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs 6. Institute training “on-the-job” 7. Institute leadership. The aim of supervision should be to help people and machines do a better job 8. Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively 9. Break down barriers between departments 10. Eliminate slogans and targets that ask the workforce for

zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships 11. Eliminate work quotas on the factory floor. Eliminate management by numbers and numerical goals 12. Remove barriers that rob the hourly worker of his right to pride of workmanship 13. Institute a vigorous programme of education and self-improvement 14. Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation.

Deming’s principles provided a new way for managers to think about their roles and how their companies function. It’s not difficult to revise each principle to apply to safety.

A quarter of a century after they were proposed, Deming’s principles are as relevant today as they were in 1982. In a world where change is the new normal and business transformation is core to survival, these 14 points offer a clear framework for success. Also, Deming’s principles provide us with a robust roadmap for driving sustainable safety improvement.

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IOSH News Stage set for health and safety conference of the year

thousands of our employees have experienced this style of mental health course.” bit.ly/2KzmQfd

How flexible workplaces can tackle sickness absence

Health and safety professionals from around the world will gather on 16-17 September at the International Convention Centre in Birmingham for IOSH 2019.

Health psychologist Dr Jenny Lunt will present a session on how organisations can address the leading causes of workrelated sickness absence and help employees recover at work.

She will discuss the willingness of businesses to permit recovery at work and will explore the role of line managers and how the management of common health problems can be incorporated into the mainstream.

“The longer someone is off work the harder it can be for them to return to work,” said Jenny. “However, long-term sickness absence should be avoidable in many cases if appropriate measures are taken.

“An important step is empowering managers to have conversations with their employees and take a leading role in spotting colleagues who may be struggling. By identifying obstacles that may be preventing people from wanting to go to work, managers, with the support of the wider organisation, can help to create environments that enable people to keep working.”

Jenny is an Affiliate Member of IOSH, a Chartered and Registered Health and Organisational Psychologist and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society. She is also a Director at Alt-OH (alt-oh. com); set up with Alan Bradshaw with support from Professor Kim Burton to take this area forward. bit.ly/31mAQ2w

The event will give delegates and their organisations fresh thinking, business intelligence, new updates and the chance to make new connections with other professionals. With journalist and broadcaster Cathy Newman chairing, there will be fantastic speakers and debates on the issues that matter.

Here, two of the presenters reveal insights into what they will cover in their sessions.

Can disruptive thinking benefit your business?

Karl Simons, Chief Health, Safety and Security Officer at Thames Water, will chair a panel looking at how ‘disruptive thinking’ can lead to highperformance teams. He will reveal examples of how this has worked for him and his team.

“Disruptive thinking is an approach aimed at producing an unconventional strategy towards an issue that leads to an

Cathy Newman will return to chair the conference

organisation being one step ahead and others wondering how you did it,” said Karl.

“For instance, the introduction of the world’s first mental health virtual reality course was delivered at Thames Water. It is a great example of disruptive thinking.

“As I said to the training

Each day of IOSH 2019 has a focus – understanding key areas of OSH on day one and an insight into leadership, strategy and innovation on day two – to give delegates a clearer choice between a one-day or two-day pass.

IOSH has created tailored programmes – for construction, manufacturing, public sector, HR, pharmaceutical and consultants – to make it easier to navigate around the conference.

To view these, the full programme and book your place, visit www.ioshconference.com

IOSH Council election results Twelve IOSH members have been elected to the Institution’s Council. They are Akhil Ananthakrishnan, Ciarán Delaney, Kate Field, Jessy Gomes, Natasha Graham, Keith Hole, Matthew Jackson, Mark James, Richard McIvor, Joanne Price, Steve Pulling and Diana Salmon. bit.ly/2OPY67E

team: ‘I do not want to sit in a chair watching on a TV screen photographs or videos of someone suffering from a mental health disorder…I want to be stimulated through personally feeling the effects of negative mental stressors.’

“This challenge set the team in motion to look beyond the traditional training environments. Our research led us to look at virtual reality. No one had put VR into a classroom training course environment.

“As far as I’m aware, this approach to multiple delegate classroom training has not been replicated and continues to be unique to Thames Water, where

Health-related job loss consultation Proposals aimed at reducing the number of British people who lose their jobs because of disabilities and ill health provide an opportunity that must be “vigorously seized”, says IOSH. The Government has launched a consultation on a range of measures aimed at improving how employers can best support people with disabilities, so they

can stay in work and thrive.

Among the measures proposed are a new right for employees to request modifications on health grounds for those not covered by the ‘reasonable adjustments duty’ and the right for a day-one written statement for both employees and workers to include eligibility for sick leave and pay.

Richard Jones, Head of Policy and Public Affairs at IOSH, said: “We must vigorously seize this opportunity to radically transform occupational health in Britain and secure safe and healthy working lives for everyone for the future.”

Responses can be sent to IOSH

by Friday 13 September. Visit bit.ly/2M0dPin

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IOSH News

Hazard-identifying app can help designers create safer buildings New research funded by IOSH has shown how digital apps can help construction project designers create safer buildings by improving their knowledge of hazards during the design phase.

Researchers from Glasgow Caledonian University found using a multimedia digital tool can help to educate designers on typical hazards and assist them in designing safety into construction projects more effectively.

Many professional design institutions have been gradually withdrawing the requirement for architects and civil engineers to spend prolonged periods of time on construction sites. This has meant many designers do not have the construction knowledge needed to understand how they can affect occupational safety and health and often results in

contractors taking on the responsibility for designs.

However, research shows half of construction accidents in the UK are connected to the building design, highlighting the importance of improving designers’ knowledge of hazards and including safety into developments from the outset.

Professor Billy Hare, Deputy Director of the BEAM Research Centre at Glasgow Caledonian University, said: “A key factor for this research was the visual nature of the digital tool’s content, which seemed to work best with new graduates.

“But its real potential lies in being able to capture tacit knowledge from more experienced designers for the next generation to counter the age-old problem of organisational memory loss and prevent the same old mistakes

Digital apps can help spot hazards

that cause accidents and ill health from being repeated.

“We are now looking for partners to develop the prototype digital tool for full-scale industry use.”

Using the tool, architects identified over three times the number of hazards. Civil engineers identified five times as many.

In both cases the scope of

hazards identified was double that of the control group not using the multimedia tool, suggesting it was an effective way of improving designers’ knowledge of hazards. This knowledge could help to create safer buildings by factoring a greater number of hazards into the planning and design of construction sites.

Mary Ogungbeje, Research Manager at IOSH, said: “In today’s age of technology, being able to utilise digital training resources to help designers is great. Such tools can make a real difference in upskilling professionals, irrespective of their level of experience.

Architects and civil engineers can identify hazards and come up with better controls when developing and reviewing designs. Ultimately, this will reduce injuries and save lives.”

Research shows major construction projects can improve workers’ understanding of occupational health risks Major construction projects can play a critical role in improving workers’ understanding of health risks and championing ‘universally high standards’ across the industry, new research funded

by IOSH suggests.

A three-year study by Loughborough University researchers, which concluded this year, aimed to explore the management of health, safety and wellbeing interventions on the Thames Tideway Tunnel development.

Members of the research team were integrated into each of the construction teams working on the project and monitored key health and safety processes, personnel, documentation, events and activities.

In a new paper entitled ‘Raising the bar for occupational health management in construction’, published in the Institution of Civil Engineers’ journal Civil Engineering, the research team highlights practical measures from the Tideway project to help stakeholders improve the management of health risks in construction.

They suggest major projects have an important role to play in upskilling workers, and that construction managers

Researchers were integrated into the Tideway project

must take responsibility for health risk management, supported by skilled OSH and health professionals.

The study suggests a consistent approach to occupational health management and health surveillance is needed across the construction industry with a commitment to improved portability of occupational health data.

It also recommends research including further training for frontline workers, particularly to compensate for low visibility of health hazards including noise and respirable dust, and greater awareness of health conditions with long latency periods,

including those caused by silica dust and asbestos exposure.

Professor Alistair Gibb, from Loughborough University, said: “Major projects such as Tideway are critical to developing universally high health management standards and are well-placed to champion good occupational health services and to use their expertise and influence to embed change within their own supply chains.

“To achieve long-lasting improvements, these standards must be adopted throughout the sector, particularly within the SMEs which employ the majority of the workforce.”

Mary Ogungbeje, Research Manager at IOSH, said: “For health to truly be treated like safety in construction there needs to be a shift in the perception and practices of employers and workers, and an acceptance in industry that high standards should not be an exceptional practice but the necessary norm. The study highlights practical measures to help all stakeholders address barriers and improve the management of health risks in construction.”

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IOSH News

IOSH Global Working developments in Asia IOSH’s Head of Global Engagement and Partnerships Alan Stevens and Global Engagement Adviser Gisela Derrick had a series of constructive meetings throughout July and August in Japan, South Korea and Malaysia. These, along with collaboration discussions and engagements in Africa and Australia, form part of IOSH’s Global Working programme under WORK 2022.

Collaborations in South Korea and Japan During Korea Safety Week, at a large OSH exhibition and conference in Seoul, Alan and Gisela met with the Korean Industrial Safety Association (KISA) and the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Association (KOSHA).

At the Korea International Safety & Health Show (KISS 2019), Alan presented IOSH strategies for education and training at an international

IOSH representatives held a series of meetings in Malaysia

seminar on education programmes for enhancing OSH professionals’ competence.

Separately, Gisela Derrick presented IOSH’s No Time to Lose occupational cancer campaign to government officials from Asia-Pacific countries, including Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, in a KOSHA and ILO co-hosted session.

Alan said: “Our collaborative work with KOSHA is in full swing. In July, we visited KOSHA offices to discuss joint-work, building on the memorandum of

collaboration signed in April when KOSHA’s Vice-President, Director of International Cooperation and International Cooperation Manager visited our UK offices. We also had fruitful discussions with KISA. We look forward to welcoming guests from Korea to IOSH 2019 in the UK in September.”

The next stop was Tokyo, to meet and present to JISHA, the Japan Industrial Safety and Health Association. Alan and Gisela presented on IOSH activities, including No Time to Lose, learned more about JISHA’s

programme of work and explored synergies around training and capacity-building.

Global engagement in Malaysia IOSH President Professor Vincent Ho presented at the Malaysian Society for Occupational Safety and Health (MSOSH) National Seminar 2019, in Kuala Lumpur at the start of August.

Alan Stevens and Gisela Derrick from IOSH also attended the two-day event before a series of meetings to better understand the OSH system in Malaysia and advance co-operation plans with partners locally.

They hosted a special social evening in Kuala Lumpur for IOSH members based in Malaysia to meet Vincent Ho. Meetings with the Malaysian Government’s Department for Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH), the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), the Malaysian Society for Occupational Safety and Health (MSOSH) and the Malaysian Occupational Safety and Health Practitioners’ Association (MOSHPA) followed to explore ways they and IOSH can work beneficially together.

Partnership to bolster Nigerian health and safety standards IOSH has entered into a partnership with the Lagos State Government to train people in Nigeria on workplace safety and health.

Earlier this year IOSH signed a memorandum of collaboration with the Lagos State Safety Commission (LSC). The agreement proposed IOSH oversee the training of professionals, while the Commission pledged to promote the Institution and the benefits of membership.

Alan Stevens, Head of Global Engagement and Partnerships at IOSH, visited Lagos in July to meet with senior stakeholders in the LSC and training providers to develop a plan to take the initiative forward and build on the spirit of collaboration.

LSC Director General Hakeem Dickson said the Commission will make every effort to

promote occupational health and safety and will ensure there is appropriate capacity across the state to ensure competence.

He said: “Our aim is to develop a strong safety culture through the leaders where organisations in every sector would be compelled to set up a safety department. We aim to save more lives and properties, hence our intention of moving the agency from its embryonic level to a more matured level. As such, we’ve decided to bridge this gap by providing tools to enhance competency within the state. Our collaboration with the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health will help to train our people on safety and health in Nigeria.”

The partnership will strengthen relationships and build capacity for a significant number of practitioners,

managers, graduates and more from any discipline.

“We respect and admire the vision and determination of Hon. Hakeem Dickson and the Lagos State Safety Commission and we are determined to support this partnership in every way we possibly can to ensure that the vision becomes a reality,” said Alan Stevens. “IOSH, as the largest health and safety professional body in the world,

has a very clear strategy through our strategy, WORK 2022, which is focused on collaboration to enhance and influence professionals globally.”

The Lagos State Safety Commission was established ten years ago to set standards for worker protection. It discourages unsafe behaviour and work-related illness and boost national productivity and quality of life.

IOSH course translations for safer workplaces worldwide IOSH’s Managing Safely and Working Safely courses are now available in Bahasa Indonesia, Arabic and Simplified Chinese. The translations, along with Turkish and Hindi versions which IOSH will launch later this year, will increase accessibility to these important learning materials, potentially to millions of workers and managers around the world.

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IOSH News

Column

Gary Latta CMIOSH EHS Lead – PepsiCo UK and Ireland Using data analysis to inform good decision-making underpins much of what we do. We all know how good planning and design, measuring the right things in the right way, organising and analysing results, and applying insights can enhance OSH professional practice.

Data is just the start for the modern practitioner. Many of us know the pain of creating graphs and charts showing different data sets for what the organisation is reviewing.

I can recall the slight judder of fear when I worked in the oil and gas industry and employees were encouraged to submit set numbers of observation cards each week. The data request was to create a breakdown of what hazards people were reporting. Great information, I agree, but this resulted in hundreds of paper observation cards landing on my desk every week. Looking back now, I was able to collect and present the data; but understanding how it could be lifted and structured into something tangible to influence decision-making was where I struggled.

I believe, as we become OSH professionals intrinsic to the success of our organisations, we must develop abilities to look at what data to collect and, more importantly, how to analyse and ultimately use that data. If we ignore that, we leave ourselves in danger of simply collecting and presenting data and chasing harder-to-achieve results.

In the past, my own field of view has been narrowed when collecting and reviewing data by only focusing on a single location and organisation. Exposure to Be inventive and recent academic development consider using has shown me that to truly methods from other understand something, we may industries need to cast our net wider, looking outside our own organisations at the whole industry – and broader political, economic, social and technological dimensions. The OSH issue I considered for my dissertation demanded I look at industry trends and reflect on wider national data sets.

I am not saying we can spend all our time looking that widely, but it is important, when we focus on what to collect and how to interpret data to facilitate higher-level business decisions, that we must consider expanding our scope.

The more robust the data, the more our insights will be respected and support focus areas we want to target.

Critically assess what you think is most important to measure and collect. Never simply follow what a predecessor did. If things need changing, challenge to create those stepchanges. While lagging data indicates what went wrong, forward-facing data helps us create new strategies.

Be inventive and consider using methods from other industries. One example is employing heat maps to look at what areas are showing trends in specific places. This helps to get you ahead by looking at what’s happening and where you can move quickly to make a change.

We used this in the military to identify areas of enemy movement and kinetic hot spots from aerial views. Taking the roof off a location and looking down gives you a very different view of what changes are needed. I believe that combining our ability to know what data we need with being dynamic will carry OSH professionals forward and help us keep pace with other professions who effectively collect, analyse, organise and utilise data.

IOSH shortlisted for awards An IOSH project to attract the best talent and help them settle in when their employment starts has been shortlisted in two major awards schemes.

The ‘Attraction and Induction’ project is included in shortlisted entries for the ‘Best SME People Management Initiative’ category in the CIPD People Management Awards 2019. It has also been shortlisted in the ‘Change Project of the Year’ category for the Charity Times Awards 2019.

Meanwhile IOSH’s Chief Executive Bev Messinger has been shortlisted in the ‘Rising CEO Star’ category of the Charity Times Awards.

IOSH Head of People, Jasbir Bilen, said: “It’s great for IOSH to be selected alongside big names in the charity sector in recognition of the transformational work we’re all doing here.

Fire evacuation complacency survey IOSH’s Fire Risk Management Group has launched a survey to uncover how much complacency there is around fire evacuation.

IOSH members have until 30 September to take part in the survey. They need to get three people from their business to complete it – a worker, a supervisor and a senior leader.

Once the survey results are in, the group will compile them in an academic paper, addressing the issues.

They are also creating new educational modules around fire safety. These will be for use by safety and health professionals around the world to deal with fire safety, which will enhance their knowledge as part of their continuing professional development. bit.ly/2OWtZfd

“The work of our Chief Executive has made the organisation stronger, more efficient and financially stable, and it has enhanced IOSH’s global profile, developing excellent collaborative relationships – all achieved in just over two years.

“Regarding the CIPD awards, to be externally recognised for the work and impact this project has had on our ability to recruit, select and transform our on-boarding and induction process for new employees is incredible.”

The CIPD awards will be presented on 24 September, while the Charity Times awards will be presented on 2 October.

Two new IOSH fellows Two IOSH members, Keith Hole and Phil Taberner, have become chartered fellows following the July round of interviews. Meanwhile, 35 members successfully gained CMIOSH status. For a full list of names, visit www.iosh.com/ newchartered

Student events discount IOSH is encouraging Student Members’ interest and engagement by giving a 70% discount on its events.

IOSH Student Membership is free for full-time students, with a one-off fee of £50 for part-time students.

Read the full eligibility criteria for Student Membership: bit.ly/2Yx000P

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Events For IOSH group and branch events visit www.iosh.com September 16-17 IOSH 2019

23-26 10th International Conference on the Prevention of Accidents at Work

ICC Birmingham £650 (IOSH members); £850 (non-members) The conference agenda will cover leadership, sustainability and future risks. HSE chair Martin Temple will deliver the opening address, while the keynote speakers will be journalist and author Frank Gardner and health and wellbeing expert Dr John Briffa. www.ioshconference.com

16-18 8th Occupational and Environmental Exposure of Skin to Chemicals (OEESC) The Pillo Hotel, Dublin, Ireland £600 The conference will bring together researchers, practitioners, regulators, dermatologists, health and safety professionals, occupational health advisers, occupational hygienists, toxicologists, product formulators and other experts from around the world to discuss the latest issues that affect skin exposure management. www.oeesc.com

Radisson Blu Park Royal Palace Hotel, Vienna, Austria £508 approx The likes of the ISSA’s Joachim Breuer, Erik Hollnagel from the University of Jönköping and Kathy Seabrook from ANSI will provide insights on digitalisation, safety management systems and vision zero. www.wos2019.net

5-8

1-2

Food and Drink Manufacturing Health and Safety Conference DoubleTree by Hilton Forest Pines Spa & Golf Resort, Broughton, Brigg £390 inc VAT (IOSH members) Representatives from Samworth Brothers and Greencore are speaking at this year’s conference. bit.ly/316QfVn

8-9

15

12-14 Vision Zero Summit Clarion Hotel, Helsinki, Finland £800 approx exc VAT The first summit will hear from Antti Leino from Skanska Finland; Pete Kines from the National Research Centre for the Working Environment, Denmark; BG Verkehr’s Christian Felten; and Lester Claravall, Oklahoma Department of Labor in the US. www.ttl.fi/visionzero19

Health and Safety North EventCity, Manchester Free for delegates More than 2,000 visitors are expected to attend the trade show, co-located with Fire Safety North. bit.ly/2ZOKeMJ

Lone Worker Safety Expo The King’s Fund, central London £175 (IOSH members); £205 (non-members) Confirmed speakers include Sean Elson, Pinsent Masons; Louise Ward, Siemens Mobility; Duncan Spencer, IOSH; Barbara Hockey, head of the HSE’s vulnerable workers team; and Patrick Holdaway, chief inspector, National Business Crime Centre. www.loneworkersafetyexpo.com

A+A Düsseldorf, Germany £260 approx Ticket price includes entry to the trade fair and congress, the main programme topics of which are technology and labour laws, structuring work and working time, and new tools and working methods. www.aplusa-online.com

October

19-18 Health and Safety Summer School Worcester College, Oxford £875 exc VAT Delegates will hear about how to encourage safety engagement in environments where the risks appear low or where there has not been a recent incident. Barrister Simon Antrobus will discuss how the courts approach corporate and individual fault for safety breaches, touching on recent sentencing decisions for Alton Towers, McDonald’s and Whirlpool. bit.ly/339p6Ck

November

19

Rail Industry Conference Science and Industry Museum, Manchester £120 inc VAT (IOSH members); £150 (non-members) Bookings are now open for the IOSH Railway Group’s annual conference.

Speakers from the Office of Rail and Road, the Rail Safety and Standards Board, Network Rail, Volker Rail, the European Union Agency for Railways, HS2 and the Railway Heritage Trust have already been confirmed. bit.ly/2ESi7Dd

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Reviews

Here are all the books we’ve reviewed to date ioshmagazine.com/type/reviews

Chernobyl, Sky Atlantic DVD Acorn Media, £15 (www.amazon.co.uk) In Disastrous Decisions and Failure to Learn Andrew Hopkins presented excellent examples of management making it clear bad news is unwelcome and the importance of a proactive or mindful culture. He described meetings about cuts that would finish with management asking, forcefully, “Any problems with that? No? Good – get on with it then.”

Several commentators have suggested that Sky Atlantic’s Chernobyl is the best drama series ever made and it features countless scenes where bad news was suppressed aggressively. Worse, concerned technicians who were told “just effing do it”, despite their concerns, and were then screamed at when things went wrong.

This powerful, indeed terrifying, drama adds little to the canon of films about major incidents from which we have learned huge amounts – Spiral to Disaster about Piper Alpha and Major Malfunction about Challenger spring to mind. The message at its core is, if you cut corners to save money and/or have political posturing as your core KPIs, people will get hurt.

The avoidability and root cause of events are mortifying. The investigation found that technicians did challenge the local management team – but the

managers needed tests rushed through and signed off because they’ve already pocketed the awards and bonuses attached to completion. Cheap materials were used and the dynamic between the KGB and the investigation team is chilling.

Admissions to the outside world were driven entirely by necessity because, for example, dangerous readings were recorded as far away as Scandinavia. The local town was evacuated only when children in German schools were kept indoors. Even then Moscow continued to lie about anything it could lie about. The official number of fatalities continues to be downplayed.

The only positive was the sheer bravery and sacrifice of some of the key players who went willingly to the site to help, knowing they’d be dead within years – and the hundreds of workers who’d be dead faster than that.

A memorable scene, possibly fictional but certainly illustrative, is when the leader of the miners is presented with a face mask. (The miners’ utterly heroic work stopped the meltdown reaching the water course which would have meant, at best, the evacuation of tens of millions). The miner tosses the mask back to his superiors with the curt observation, “Huh, if these worked, you’d be wearing them.” This is a superb drama even if you have no interest in safety. It’s utterly essential viewing if you have.

TIM MARSH, CFIOSH AND CHARTERED PSYCHOLOGIST

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Leader interview

Lawrence Webb Costain

The infrastructure group’s strategy director is tasked with the “forward-looking stuff” Words: LOUIS WUSTEMANN Pictures: ANDREW FIRTH

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Leader interview

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Leader interview

“T

he business is changing in terms of the scope of work we get involved in,” says Lawrence Webb. “We are in a unique spot. We have experience of seeing everything from day one to day X, not just construction and maintenance, but also project management, contract management, design, decommissioning.

All the different disciplines you need for a big infrastructure project, we have capability in.”

Webb is talking about the changing profile of Costain, the family-owned business that celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2017 but has come a long way from its roots as a housebuilder.

Now it is developing again, capitalising, as Webb says, on its long experience of building and maintaining rail, road and utilities networks to offer “smart” infrastructure services, helping them cope with forecast increased demands on our water and transport networks.

This evolution in the company contributed to the creation of the post Webb now holds, that of group safety, health and environment (SHE) strategy director.

Before 2016, the senior structure comprised a SHE director with a deputy responsible for divisional operations – Webb filled that latter role until he left the company for a period in 2008.

“As the group grew and the scope of our work became more varied and complex, it became clear that there was too much for one role,” says Webb.

When Gavin Bye took over the top job of SHE director in 2017, he split the deputy role into an operational director – managing day-to-day safety and health for Costain’s 3,700 employees – and the strategy director post. The latter involves “doing the look-ahead aspect”, as Webb puts it, informing OSH improvements, as well as overseeing SHE systems and assurance.

Webb says supporting Costain’s new direction tasks him with looking outside the business: “You need to spend a lot of time researching, increasing your network, seeing what the great and good are up to and what is coming over the horizon.”

Some of his most valuable conversations are with OSH and wellbeing professionals outside the construction and engineering sectors and he is building a network of such people in pharmaceuticals and aviation to provide insight and expertise in different methods of safety management.

One innovation this wide reach helped inspire was the development of new incident investigation training, drawing on specialists from Cranfield University.

“They have world-leading experts in marine and aviation disasters,” says Webb. “[We thought], why don’t we speak to them?”

The course employs investigation methods used in high-hazard sectors and by the police to help discover root causes of incidents.

In every solution that designs out a hazard, you can bet that there will be something else [hazardous] that comes with that

“Though the principles of incident investigation are the same, they are going into a different level of detail,” says Webb, citing the advice from police investigators to take careful note of the interviewees’ behaviour during an investigation.

More than 40 investigators in the SHE team have trialled the three-day course and in 2020 it will be extended to managers from the operations teams and to quality managers.

“We have put something together that the whole business could use to challenge itself,” he says.

Tech talk Costain’s reinvention as a smart infrastructure provider inevitably entails a heavy investment in new technology. As well as increasing efficiency – sensors allow better infrastructure monitoring – some of the technology has the potential to reduce human exposure to risk through automation. Examples include using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to carry out inspections at height and exoskeletons to reduce manual handling strains.

Webb says he is excited about the risk-reduction potential of automation. “But you need to understand what the technology is and what it can and can’t do.

In every solution that designs out a hazard, you can bet your life that there will be something else [hazardous] that comes with that change and we must be cognisant of that.”

In exploring the potential for UAVs to move materials on a construction site, “what happens if the drone falls out of the sky? You don’t want to sound like someone trying to dismiss these opportunities but as a SHE team we are challenging those ideas in

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Leader interview

In the scheme of things As safety, health and environment (SHE) strategy director at Costain, Lawrence Webb reports to the group SHE director who reports, in turn, to the chief operating officer.

Webb’s job was created when the post of deputy to group SHE director was split into two, the other covering operational safety management.

His strategy team is made up of one manager overseeing plant and vehicle standards, one in charge of strategy planning and the assurance programme, one managing SHE systems and one in occupational health and the group carbon manager, with a total of nine in the strategy function.

“We are all focused on forward looking and on assurance […] The bulk of our SHE team, which is about 160-strong, report into the operational side, because that’s their role,” he says. “But on a day-to-day basis you wouldn’t know, because we all act together.”

As in many construction companies, responsibility for managing OSH risks rests with operational management rather than the SHE team.

Webb’s function’s audit and assurance responsibilities include ensuring projects conform to the company’s suite of safety standards, coordinating with BSI which certifies Costain for a range of SHE management standards.

a constructive way. We want them to go forward but safely with us acting as enablers.”

This constructive approach has resulted in the SHE team’s involvement in technology projects from the early stages, he says.

The SHE team also works with equipment manufacturers to ensure their designs minimise risk.

He offers as an example a new forward-tipping dump truck, a notoriously hazardous piece of plant in the past. The latest iteration developed by Wacker Neuson not only has an enclosed cab to protect the driver from dust and noise but also removes the need for them to dismount during loading. “We have been involved in that since the beginning,” he says of the new model.

Costain’s horizon-scanning work, whether in seeking to improve the services it offers, or the safety and health of its employees, is increasingly valued by customers, he says.

“We are able to positively influence clients in Network Rail and Highways England and the water sector,” he says. “They come to us for advice and assistance rather than simple provision; that’s a noticeable change. They ask, ‘What are the things you think we need to think about in 20 or 30 years’ time?’”

In future, he says, the company wants to offer clients a “one stop shop”. “We are looking at what we need in our internal capabilities to achieve that […] that makes it an exciting time.”

Eliminating harm Costain’s previous three-year SHE strategy, which ended in 2018, was headed Halving Harm. “We achieved that,” notes Webb, of the promised 50% reduction in accident rates and occupational illness. The new goal,

rather than achieving another statistical reduction, is to eliminate harm wherever possible. “That’s doable if you are prepared to think differently,” he says.

The senior managers on every one of Costain’s contracts have been tasked with contributing a substantial example of how they have worked towards eliminating harm.

These initiatives should have a virtuous local effect but that can be multiplied by promulgating them across the other contracts. The case studies are being uploaded to a “digital showcase” on an intranet portal where they are available to everyone.

“People need to get recognition for challenging the norm and for putting them together,” he says of the case studies. “So we will be looking through the top ones from each month and recognising them in our awards next year.”

Group-wide efforts to minimise harm include a recent announcement that all new Costain subcontracts will be required to use only workplace transport whose engines meet the European Stage IIIB emission standards, which limit the amount of toxic nitrogen oxide and particulate carbon they put out.

Another strand in the harm elimination strategy is the introduction of periodic “hold points” in the design of processes or facilities, at which the designers are required to pause and sign off to say they have done everything necessary to reduce the potential for harm to as low as reasonably practicable and to check that no technological advances since they last checked have made a further reduction feasible. They are supported by a new bespoke training package.

The scope of this risk reduction approach isn’t limited to construction and commissioning but stretches into the operational phase. “It could be one of our clients who benefits from that elimination of harm, it could be the general public, it could be the user of an asset we have put in place benefiting in 30 years’ time.”

The logic of starting harm elimination as early as possible in processes has led to some radical thinking, even to the point of questioning whether clients really need the work they have asked Costain to bid on.

“Often what they have got could just be enhanced.

In the case of the water companies we have said, ‘If

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Leader interview

Lawrence Webb Career file 2017-present

Group SHE strategy director, Costain

2013-2016

Interactive tutor, Construction Health and Safety Group

2011-2016

Director and consultant, LWS Associates

2009-2010

Head of operations, Sypol

2008-2009

HSCE leader, Woodland Grange

2004-2008

SHE manager, Costain

1999-2004

Senior tutor/consultant, Woodland Grange

you don’t need to build something new but could take what you’ve got and make it better with some of the technology we have available, why would you not want to do that?’”

Promoting reuse and enhancement of existing assets over replacement has obvious environmental benefits as well as reducing construction risk, he notes.

Sustained achievement As with many organisations that make sustainability a corporate value, Costain has built its current strategy, which runs till 2025, on ongoing research into the issues that its senior managers and the organisation’s other stakeholders – employees and customers and the public – believe are “material” to its sustainable operation. In the materiality matrix that was derived from the research, safety polled in the top position and employee health came not far behind.

Webb says he feeds into the materiality assessment with views from his network of SHE practitioners in other organisations.

The SHE strategy has put more emphasis on employee wellbeing than before and led to more visible

Know your limitations and have some humility. Without that you can get yourself into a right pickle

commitment by the company’s board. At the start of last year Costain’s finance director, Tony Bickerstaff, asked to take on the role of board sponsor for employee wellbeing. (In June 2018, Bickerstaff contributed a column to IOSH Magazine on the business benefits of investing in employee wellbeing, bit.ly/2OmKC33.)

The company’s aim is to reduce its sickness absence rate to 20% below the UK private sector average by 2025. Does achieving that goal fall more under Webb’s strategic remit or that of his operational oppo?

“We are doing it together,” he says, “and HR is involved as well. It’s in my area in terms of monitoring and improving. From the operational side of things, it’s more about ensuring we have the process to get the data. We are now focusing on leading indicators to get results, not historical data.”

He has been working with his peers in other organisations under the auspices of Business in the Community (BITC), the charity promoting responsible corporations, to learn what Costain can do to reduce absence, beyond its existing initiatives.

(The company was awarded with the highest ranking in BITC’s Corporate Responsibility Index in 2013 and was highly commended for health and wellbeing in its 2019 awards.)

He gives the example of return-to-work interviews after absence. “Speaking to people in the finance sector, they have done a lot of work on this.” Costain’s questions on reasons for absence during the interviews will be improved to provide better data that the OSH and HR teams can act on.

“How that data is presented is important as well,” he says. “If it’s leading [indicators] rather than lagging, it will tend to drive change.”

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Leader interview

“It’s just good management for everybody to have the skills to recognise when anyone working under them or even around them is heading to the point where they are going to be ill.”

The company’s focus on psychological wellbeing grew out of the appointment of general health champions four years ago, which was an employee-led initiative concentrating on occupational health. “It very quickly became about mental health,” says Webb.

Another aspect of wellbeing Costain has concentrated on in the past 12 months is the facility for employees to ask for altered working patterns to suit other aspects of their lives. Webb says this kind of flexibility has traditionally been the preserve of white-collar servicesector businesses, but Costain sees giving valued staff a chance to fulfil a non-work ambition while retaining their skills as advantageous to both parties.

“There’s one chap, a driver, who, because he’s on the tools on a site, never wanted to speak up about the fact he’d love to do a degree,” he says. “As soon as we had the conversation, he’s now signing up for a degree and his team are flexing their work to support him.”

This informal flexibility is promoted as dynamic working. Managers are encouraged to judge workers on outputs, not inputs, to allow for the temporal flexibility. “We are trying to use words that people can relate to positively,” says Webb.

Fellow feeling

Mental health support has – rightly – become a “me-too” area of provision for construction companies, but Costain was an early adopter. It provides mental health awareness training for all its managers and one in 15 are trained in mental health first aid.

“But the key thing is that everyone is willing to have a conversation,” notes Webb, “and not let it get to the point where you feel you are on your own.”

The company’s wellness and eliminating harm strategies overlap in its efforts to plan work, ensuring there are enough people to meet targets and foreseeing pinch points, so employees are not placed under excessive stress or unduly fatigued to complete projects on time.

“Over the past couple of years the fact that virtually all of industry has had that same realisation has made it easier,” says Webb. “Clients and organisations we work with have gone from a place where it was a difficult conversation that gave you problems you would struggle to manage to the point where it is an expectation. [Clients will ask], ‘Where is your fatiguemanagement plan?’”

Between his current and previous stints at Costain, Webb spent eight years as a consultant, initially working through consultancies Woodland Grange and Sypol, latterly as director of his own company. I ask if that experience has helped him now he is back in the corporate world.

“Empathy is one thing that’s essential in consultancy,” he says. “You need to be able to understand your client, not to just give them what you think they need but to stop and listen, then provide a solution that meets their needs. Someone once said to me an ideal consultant is one who will design themselves out of a business, not keep themselves there. If you are doing a good job you are making things better and refining them to the point where they can say, ‘Thanks very much, we are in a good place’.”

“The other interesting thing about consultancy is the huge exposure it gives you,” he adds. “I’ve worked in so many sectors, in so many organisations with different cultures, standards, approaches to things; that places me ideally to understand, in the changes we are going through here, what the next generation of Costain will look like as our own consultancy offering continues to grow.”

I wrap up by asking what the most valuable thing is he has learned as an OSH leader.

“Know your limitations and have some humility,” he says, firmly. “Without that you can get yourself into a right pickle. As hard as you try, not all your ideas are the best ones. So a bit of humility is key. I’ve always been willing to step back and say, ‘Is this right? Let’s ask some people’, and if it isn’t right, let’s get those same people to help come up with the way forward.

“A good leader is someone who can put their hand up and say, ‘I need a bit of help with this, and I have the people who can give me that help’. I’ve always been as much a part of the team as its leader. I’ve found that brings good people with you because they like that approach.” ●

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Behaviour change

Learning from:

magicians

The principles behind illusion can help to inspire a safer, healthier working culture so it is worth OSH practitioners knowing some tricks of the trade Words: BRIDGET LEATHLEY

M

agic has been part of safety and health education for nearly 20 years. But using trickery to understand psychology is even older, with Alfred Binet studying this area in the 1890s.

IOSH Magazine spoke to Dr Gustav Kuhn, Ivor Smith and Rubens Filho, magicians with different backgrounds. All have something to share that can benefit OSH professionals. Kuhn has been involved with the Wellcome Collection exhibition “Smoke and Mirrors: the psychology of magic” (a free exhibition in London that runs until 15 September 2019), which provided valuable material for this article.

The psychology of magic Kuhn started as a professional magician, but became so fascinated by the psychology behind the magic that he took his talents into academia. He teaches psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London, and wrote about links between magic and psychology in his book, Experiencing the Impossible: the science of magic, which was published in February. Kuhn runs the MAGIC (Mind Attention and General Illusory

Cognition) lab at Goldsmiths, where he studies what magic tricks tell us about the human mind.

“Magic is about preventing people seeing what exists or making people see what doesn’t exist, sometimes both,” he says.

“It exploits cognitive loopholes. This has major implications for understanding health and safety. If you’re not aware of those loopholes it’s easy to blame people for mistakes. Awareness of the loopholes might help in designing systems that are more resilient to error.”

The design of a work environment might prevent us seeing what does exist, such as a warning light or damaged equipment. Sometimes during an audit, inspection or accident investigation we see what we expect to see. Understanding how magicians exploit our perception, our memory and our recall can help to recognise where these problems occur in the workplace.

We start by looking at four examples of the loopholes exploited by magicians and what these tell us about OSH. Then we examine ways that magic has been used to inspire a safer and healthier working culture.

Kuhn provides examples of his illusions on YouTube,

Dr Gustav Kuhn is reader in psychology at Goldsmiths, London

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© Gustav Kuhn

Behaviour change

so if you can view these before you read each section it will make reading this a more magical experience!

1. Misdirection (youtu.be/qKjETmS-mJs) One natural principle magicians exploit is that, when there are large movements and small movements, the human visual system focuses on the larger (see disappearing lighter illustration above). “If the right hand moves a long way to the left hand, the small movement of the fingers towards the palm to hide a sponge ball is easily missed,” he says. Kuhn illustrates this principle with a disappearing cigarette lighter in the YouTube video.

Consider how this could apply in your workplace. The movement of a vehicle across a wide area might hide the fact that the forks on a lift truck are being raised at the same time or that the bucket on a digger is tilting. If you watch someone walking away from a noisy or dusty area, are you aware of the precise moment they remove their hearing protection or dust mask? Would you be able to say with certainty whether they are far enough away from the hazard at the time the PPE is removed?

Kuhn says social cues enhance this effect: “We tend to look where other people are looking or pointing. If I look at my right hand, the audience is likely to look too – missing what is happening with my left hand.”

Joint safety inspections are intended to bring more eyes, ears and minds to the process, but if all the eyes are looking the same way because of social cueing it is easy to miss something.

2. Change blindness (youtu.be/qblOKInU6Ik) A card trick demonstrates the phenomenon of change blindness. Kuhn shows you six cards (see illustration, facing page) and asks you to think of one of them.

We see experts in our workplace and don’t like to challenge them.

If our peers don’t question something, why would we?

He magically throws away one of the cards and then shows you the remaining ones. Everyone looks for the card they thought of – it’s not there. Whichever card you thought of, it’s not there. With sleight of hand, the magician has replaced all six cards with five different cards, but with the same range of colours and mix of court and number cards.

Given the similarities between the cards, most of the time (unless primed for the trick) the viewers don’t notice that all the cards have changed. Each of us focuses on our own card, not on the other five. My card has disappeared, so the magician must have known what card I selected. The phenomenon is known as change blindness. If you watch the video, Kuhn changes something else that most people don’t spot first time around, but I won’t spoil it for you.

In the workplace, recognising change blindness is important. Small changes over time might be ignored.

The floors get greasier, the machinery noisier, the floor surface more uneven. If an auditor has been asked to work through a specific checklist, there can be misdirection towards just those items on it, while something significant is ignored. Like the fire risk assessor who is obsessed with the position of extinguishers but fails to notice that the new fire exit has no signage or lighting.

“Much of our work shows that people can look directly at something, yet they still do not see it,” he says. The six-card trick would be easy to detect on subsequent viewings, focusing on a different card each time. One workplace response to our change blindness could be to look for different hazards on each inspection rather than focusing on the same checklist each time.

3. False memories (youtu.be/mc0gQcP20pg) The vanishing ball illusion demonstrates two loopholes (see illustration, p 29). The first is that we predict what is going to happen from what has happened before.

The second is that, having made a prediction, we are more likely to develop a false memory that whatever we predicted really happened. Our brains will fill in any gaps with what we expected to see.

In this illusion, Kuhn throws a ball into the air. Once.

Twice. Three times. On the third occasion, the ball does not fall back down to the magician’s hand. Two-thirds of the audience swear they saw it go up the third time.

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© Gustav Kuhn

Behaviour change

“This demonstrates people often see things they believe will happen in the future, but that did not take place,” he says. As with other tricks, social cueing enhances the effect. Kuhn looks up each time he throws (or pretends to throw) the ball and, generally, everyone else does too, missing what he does with the ball in his hand.

The implications of this for investigating accidents are clear – witnesses, even the injured party, might genuinely believe they saw something on a given day because they had seen it on other days and expect to have seen it on that day too. On Monday and Tuesday I saw a guard on the machine. If Jack’s hand was trapped in the machine on Wednesday, he must have removed the guard. Referring back to the magic trick, on the third “throw” the ball was not thrown upwards.

In the workplace, on the third day the overnight maintenance staff had not replaced the guard, so it was not there when Jack started work.

The fallibility on which the magician relies for the success of the trick results in an inaccurate accident report and incorrect remedial measures. A witness or the injured party might genuinely believe they saw something on a given day because of an expectation based on what they had seen previously.

However, even when we haven’t seen something before, our brains are influenced by expectations and social cues. Kuhn and colleagues returned to the vanishing ball illusion to ask a further question: did the trick work if people had never seen the two true throws first? A primed group saw the trick as before – two true throws and one false, while the non-primed group saw only the false throw. As before, around two-thirds of the primed group believed they had seen the ball being thrown and disappear. Did the non-primed group do better?

Some did, but one-third of the group, influenced by expectations and social cues, still believed they had seen the ball being thrown.

cannot attend the exhibition in central London, watch the YouTube video from about two-and-a-half minutes in. This is not one of Kuhn’s tricks, but one from the late, great British comedian and magician, Tommy Cooper. Cooper appears to be making a mess of a trick, clumsily hiding an egg. He plays with the audience, misleading them into thinking they know how he’s done the trick. Suddenly, the audience realise they are wrong, and cannot see the solution at all.

This is of key relevance to accident investigations. In “Clear your head” (IOSH Magazine, February 2018: bit.ly/2E2f21a) we looked at how hindsight bias, anchoring and confirmation bias affect accident investigations. Cooper’s trick could be used to prove to an investigation team how quickly we grab for an easy solution to a mystery, and how difficult it is to let go of that idea and consider different explanations.

That our beliefs affect how we explain events is not a new discovery. The Smoke and Mirrors exhibition features the work of Richard Hodgson and Samuel Davey in 1887. They invited people to a seance where ghostly activity was faked. The accounts that attendees wrote of what they had observed omitted important events that would not support their belief in the paranormal (such as movement from the “medium”).

Other events at the seance were recalled as having happened in a different order. Similar studies have been repeated since, with similar results. “Bizarrely,” says Kuhn, “even in 21st-century studies where people are told in advance that the paranormal effects are faked by a magician, a proportion still convince themselves they are real by leaving out important details.”

Although we are unlikely to attribute accidents at work to paranormal activity, this is a strong reminder that our pre-existing beliefs can influence how we remember things. Anyone with a strong belief about accident causation (it’s always the fault of the worker; it’s never the fault of the worker) should be aware of

Jeff Burns (left) and Ivor Smith

4. False solutions – Tommy Cooper (youtu.be/ueMr0z21mBw?t=155) A terrific example of false solutions has been on show at the Smoke and Mirrors exhibition. For those who

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© Gustav Kuhn

Behaviour change

this fallibility. Kuhn’s findings suggest some ways to overcome this.

“If there was any ambiguity in our debriefing, some people would still resort to a supernatural explanation,” he says. “We had to explain exactly how each deception was achieved to overcome this.”

Although when looking at an accident the precise circumstances might not be known, by educating ourselves on a broader range of causes for similar accidents, perhaps the tendency to grasp for the easiest explanation can be reduced.

Safety training While Kuhn started as a professional magician and moved into academia, Ivor Smith and his business partner Jeff Burns started with conventional jobs and a part-time interest in magic. Burns was a chartered accountant in the oil industry and Smith was head of marketing in economic development at Aberdeen City Council. As an amateur magician Smith incorporated tricks into his presentations for council staff. His approach was spotted by the authority’s training team and encouraged. Smith decided to go part-time and develop a management training organisation with Burns and another magician, Bill Duncan. Initially they focused on team development and organisational change, but responded quickly when asked to use the same approach for safety training. “Safety hadn’t been on our radar but, once we understood what messages organisations wanted to

Magic for soft skills Rubens Filho is the director of magic at Abracademy (abracademy.com). Trained as a lawyer, his teenage hobby of performing tricks led him to abandon law in favour of soft skills training. He explains the relevance to OSH: “More and more health and safety leaders are understanding the importance of non-technical skills like creativity, curiosity, listening skills, social skills, persuasion, influence and empathy. These are skills where magicians rule.”

Abracademy uses magic as a tool for learning and development. “We can stretch professionals outside their comfort zones so they can be more effective and take the perception of the health and safety profession to magical heights,” Filho says. g g y “With magic, people surrender into the learning rning journey in a very powerful way. Magic opens their heir minds and shifts perspectives.”

Shifting perspectives can be a critical part of moving an organisational culture. “If OSH professionals can an be more curious, innovative and confident – therefore more magical – they are likely to have a much greater impact in the businesses where they work,” Filho adds.

present, we were able to create presentations with magic around those messages.”

By 1999 there was enough work for Burns and Smith to give up their day jobs, and work with Duncan fulltime, forming Fifth Dimension (www.fifthdimension. biz) to deliver inspirational sessions to the business world. With the tagline “safety doesn’t happen by magic” they have an ever-increasing range of tricks and magic workshops to illustrate principles of safety behaviours, attitudes and soft skills. “We use magic as a visual aid to reinforce key behaviours,” says Smith.

For example, they use a card trick that works for Smith but not for Burns – until they work together. They use the trick to make the point to the audience that safety requires everyone to work together in the same way. In another (illustrated during a TEDx talk at bit.ly/2SVAPzK) the magicians have the entire audience trying to follow along with a physical exercise. At the end, the magicians’ hands are released, but everyone else’s hands in the audience are tied. Smith and Burns explain the importance of accurate instructions and effective training. Other tricks illustrate worker engagement, seeing the bigger picture and healthy lifestyles.

Complacency and hazard reporting is another target for Smith. “People are not always comfortable challenging unsafe behaviour from their colleagues,” he says. “We shock people into realising this using a Russian roulette-style trick. There is real danger in the trick, both for us as performers and the audience member helping us. You might get away with an unsafe behaviour several times, but eventually it can catch up with you.

You can see the audience wince! They are fully aware of the danger. But no one ever suggests that we stop because it’s dangerous. This leads to a great discussion – unpacking the reasons why they didn’t intervene, and why they don’t intervene in the workplace.”

Of course, we trust magicians to keep their assistants and audience volunteers safe. They are the experts. The assistant sawn in half will be reassembled safely; the rabbit in the hat will be treated in accordance with animal welfare standards; the people playing Russian roulette will not be injured. The rest of the audience too seem happy with the process, so why would we intervene? The parallels at work become clear. We see experts in our workplace and don’t like to challenge them. If our peers don’t question something, why would we?

Smith remarks on how memorable the Russian roulette trick is for those who have experienced it.

“Compared with reading bullet points on the importance of raising safety concerns, this is visceral, and people remember it. I’ve had people come up to me ten years after a session, and they can still recall how they felt.”

Final act Kuhn’s illusions point to a common finding. “When we make a decision we’re not necessarily aware of why we made that decision,” he says. “Decisions are driven by unconscious processes, and the rationalisation happens post hoc. Post hoc rationalisation is an illusion.”

A final thought relates to the sense of wonder that magic creates, something mentioned by both Kuhn and Smith, and on the Abracademy website (see box, left).

The idea of making significant changes in a workplace – changing the safety culture, reducing the accident rate, embarking on an ambitious project of training or software adoption – can seem impossible. Perhaps demonstrating that apparently impossible events are possible through magic will give a project the kick-start it needs. ●

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Lone workers

Out of sight is not out of mind Organisations that do not educate managers on the potential hazards, legal responsibilities and business benefits of effectively managing the safety and health of lone workers can leave these employees vulnerable to harm, isolation and potential violence Words: NICOLE VAZQUEZ and CHRISTINE MORRISON

E

very organisation has a legal and moral obligation to protect its lone workers, defined by the Health and Safety Executive as those “who work by themselves without close or direct supervision” (bit.ly/32KjGh3).

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that up to 25% of the UK workforce undertakes some form of lone working. Despite this, lone workers can be overlooked by managers, leading to a failure to protect their safety, health and wellbeing.

Some sectors are more likely than others to implement control measures to minimise the risk to lone workers. It is well known that, in certain public sector organisations for example, lone workers are more at risk from workplace violence and aggression.

Data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (bit.ly/2ZbmXDF) suggest there were an estimated 694,000 incidents of violence at work in 2017-18.

According to the Labour Force Survey, nine out of every ten workers who were assaulted were public sector staff.

Though the average non-fatal rate of injury due to physical acts of violence at work across all industries is 140 cases per 100,000 workers (0.1% of workers), the rate is statistically significantly higher in each of the three public service industries: public administration and defence, education, and human health and social work activities.

Meanwhile, incidents of violence and aggression towards the emergency services, teachers, social workers, NHS workers, council enforcement and housing staff have increased significantly, according to the trade union Unison (bit.ly/2OvshAV).

Across many sectors, agile workers are carrying more sophisticated equipment, such as smartphones, tablets and laptops, potentially creating targets for theft. Also, political unrest may lead to individuals representing

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Lone workers

Although agile working has its benefits, it is not uncommon for workers to express a certain loneliness and desire for more interaction

organisations with religious, political or cultural alignments being targeted.

These combined factors highlight the importance of proactively managing the personal safety of lone workers. This involves embedding a workplace safety culture and providing lone worker training to managers to ensure that they are equipped to recognise and manage risks in order to keep staff safe.

A failure to manage staff working alone and keep them safe can have serious consequences such as damaged reputation, poor morale and increased costs through absenteeism, compensation and fines. The two case studies (see boxes, this page and p 34) provide an illustration of what can happen when managers fail to put effective safeguards in place.

CMA Training recently surveyed a large, UK-wide housing association to find out the impact managers can have on staff safety. Participants included frontline

Ladbrokes assault On 5 June 2015 a female lone worker was sexually assaulted, beaten and left for dead while alone at a Ladbrokes betting shop in Leicester (bit.ly/1TUgLcS).

A regular customer was losing money on a gambling machine and asked her to come and look at the machine as he thought something was wrong with it. She left the secure area to check the machine and was grabbed by the assailant and forced into the bathroom at the rear of the building. The worker was only able to raise the alarm by calling the police 30 minutes after the attack. Her assailant was brought to justice and found guilty of attempted murder and sexual assault.

Judge Michael Chambers, presiding, described the crimes as “horrendous” and that one aspect of the case had been especially troubling: “How could Ladbrokes ever have allowed a young woman to be working on her own that night?” Judge Chambers concluded: “In my view, Ladbrokes’ actions in this case can be viewed as extremely negligent.”

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Lone workers

A failure to manage staff working alone and keep them safe can have serious consequences for businesses

housing officers who worked alone and interacted with tenants, often in tenants’ homes. They covered vast geographical areas, dealing with challenging and confrontational situations, and rarely saw their colleagues or line managers.

Line managers pivotal The research confirmed the critical role of line managers in protecting lone workers.

The most interesting findings were: 1) Inconsistent management styles and communication strategies: It is evident from interview quotes that, although some lone workers considered their line managers to be highly effective communicators, others felt the opposite. The nature of lone working magnifies the requirement for effective communication, as these employees spend most of their working week away from their base. This includes the communication of lone working policies and procedures. If communication is ineffective, there may be reduced trust and commitment.

The implication here is that relationships may be less productive with a higher risk of damage to reputation.

2) Line manager training: Although the housing association has middle management training programmes, this doesn’t appear to cover prioritising the safety of the team. The culture of personal safety in each team was down to the individual line manager. If they felt it was important, the culture was strong. If not, nobody seemed to take it seriously.

3) Differing personal safety cultures across the organisation: Established processes included lone worker policy and procedures; work shadowing and informal mentoring; warning markers on tenant database; informal buddy systems; and incident reporting. However, although there were many processes in place, they were not consistently adhered to. It was not clear how seriously staff, including line managers, took personal safety measures.

4) Existing lone working policies and processes not being followed: Linked to the above point, there was no uniform approach. Personal safety cultures differed depending on the line manager.

5) Geographical distances exacerbate practical implications for lone working: Many of the lone workers are out of the office most of the week, so rarely see their line managers or peers. Although agile working has its benefits, many of those interviewed expressed a certain loneliness and desire for more interaction with the team.

This may have implications for their mental health.

6) Relationships matter and affect lone workers’ behaviours, attitudes and intentions: The theme that ran through the research was relationships.

Relationships appear to be affected by issues such as communication and management style. The research findings support the premise that the line manager plays a pivotal role in developing employee engagement and that insensitive line management creates disengagement.

7) Lone workers care about intangible benefits, such as recognition and learning and development opportunities: Not one person complained about the salary. However, all the lone workers commented on the lack of recognition. The strongest comments concerned the lack of external training. It was clear that they all wanted to develop themselves and their skills.

So, what can line managers do to help lone workers feel more supported? Below are some practical, evidence-based recommendations around communication, creating a culture of personal safety, and training and development.

Research supports the premise that line managers play a pivotal role in developing employee engagement

32 SEPTEMBER 2019

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Lone workers

Foster good communication The nature of lone working magnifies the requirement for effective communication. This includes the communication of lone working policies, procedures, expectations and support available. If communication is ineffective, there may be reduced trust and commitment. ● Encourage and provide opportunity for regular two-way communication. Ask lone workers about their preferred method of being managed and communicated with. ● Provide opportunities for lone workers to meet up and share experiences, concerns and successes, thus reducing stress and isolation. ● Use mechanisms to determine and then drive engagement and trust levels. Consider 360-degree feedback and attitudinal surveys. Ensure that you adopt an open-door policy. ● Get to know lone workers at a personal level and recognise that your lone workers may need you to adapt your approach to their style. ● Initiate “safe and well” checks at the end of each day.

Call your lone workers occasionally just to ask how they are.

Mental health worker’s stabbing Ashleigh Ewing, a support assistant for Sunderlandbased Mental Health Matters, was killed by a service user who had a history of violence and aggression and was known to be mentally unwell. Ewing was stabbed 39 times in 2010 after being sent to Ronald Dixon’s home with a debtor’s letter ordering him to pay up for a pay phone which he had smashed inside the property days earlier, to take the coins from inside. Mental Health Matters was fined £50,000 for a breach of s 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act, for failing to do all that was reasonably practicable to ensure the safety of one of its employees. A report later also concluded that opportunities had been missed by Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust. Had staff taken a more “robust” approach to Dixon’s care in the weeks before Ashleigh’s death, it was unlikely that she would have been asked to visit him on her own (bit.ly/2Yzs0ky).

Nicole Vazquez is director of Worthwhile Training

Christine Morrison is director of CMA Training

Create a lone worker safety culture To help create a lone worker safety culture, organisations should consider the following: ● Introduce the organisition’s ethos on and approach to safety and lone working at the interview stage. Share your policies and procedures. Ensure that new starters receive appropriate training as part of their induction. ● Get it on your agenda. Cascade monthly personal safety tips in the form of toolbox talks and/or e-learning packages or webinars. Include lone worker safety and wellbeing as a standing item on the team meeting and one-to-one agendas. Promote incident reporting and discuss learning from incidents and near misses at team meetings. ● Encourage and support dynamic risk assessment and a clear “walk away” policy. Remember, how you respond to someone abandoning a task due to their concerns about safety will affect their actions next time. ● If using a lone worker system or safety devices, show trust when checking on lone workers’ use of the system and device to avoid suspicion of micro management. ● Provide appropriate and timely post-incident support (whether or not you feel the incident was serious).

●

●

Promote any employee assistance programme. Never forget the impact of an incident on mental health and wellbeing.

Be consistent in your approach.

Training and development As not all managers will be experienced or feel competent in controlling the risks associated with lone working, senior managers need to ensure that the business provides training, development and support for line managers to help them fulfil their responsibilities.

A programme of development could include risk awareness, options for risk controls and people management skills. Managers should also be trained to manage people and not simply performance and results.

Better results are achieved by relying on cooperation and consensus rather than coercion and control.

None of the above measures are costly. However, when taken together they can create an environment where lone workers enjoy positive relationships with line managers, feel safe, supported and valued. Lone workers are not created equal and to achieve equality and wellbeing we need to address individual specific needs. ●

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Fire and Evacuation

Special

Building a Safer Future report proposals

How to create a ďŹ resafe working culture

The beneďŹ ts of using VR technology in training

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Learning from Grenfell

Fit for the future The Building a Safer Future report proposes reforming the building and ďŹ re safety regulatory framework to prevent tragedies like Grenfell Tower occurring again, but what do the changes mean in practice?

Words: RICHARD JONES

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Learning from Grenfell

I

t is crucial that the Grenfell Tower fire proves to be a radical turning point for a new and improved era of building and fire safety.

Although nothing can be done to change what happened in west London in June 2017, which claimed 72 lives, we can and must prevent similar disasters.

For this to happen, there must be fundamental change around fire safety. Over the past two years there has been slow but significant work, including a major regulatory review, some removal and replacement of combustible cladding on the outside of high-rise residential buildings and regulations to ban certain use.

But this is only the start and does not go far enough.

To avoid another fire like Grenfell from happening

there must be more radical and wide-reaching reform.

Essentially, the entire system itself needs redesigning and rebuilding.

Improvement notice Dame Judith Hackitt’s independent review of building regulations and fire safety, Building a Safer Future (bit.ly/2Z7VouZ), published in May 2018, made 53 recommendations for improvement. The government accepted every single one and produced an implementation plan last December.

What we now have to ensure is that these actions happen promptly and work well in practice.

It is heartening to see that, at last, there has been some movement on this. A consultation recently

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Learning from Grenfell

Designers will need to ensure all information around safety is passed on to the client

closed on reforming the building safety regulatory system and, alongside this, a call for evidence on the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, which IOSH highlighted for attention.

So, if and when the government’s proposals are implemented, how might the future system look and who will be affected?

One noticeable change will be around responsibilities and accountability. The safety of a building must be an integral consideration throughout its entire lifecycle, including its design, construction and occupation. It has been proposed that the same dutyholder groupings model applied to the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 will be used – a linkage that IOSH advocated during the CDM review.

Dutyholders will be required to demonstrate that safety risks are being managed. They will be called on to demonstrate their own competence and that they employ competent people – another area that IOSH has strongly emphasised.

Safety must be an integral consideration throughout the design and construction phases, as well as the occupation

They will also have to produce a “safety case”, a type of permissioning regime used in industries such as nuclear, petrochemical and railways, to show that they are taking actions to reduce a building’s safety risks. The government highlights that management system principles may provide a reasonable basis for these. This is where another new element will come in: the introduction of a “gateway system”. This will be a series of points that must be satisfactorily passed, taking a safety-case approach, before the next phase of a development can proceed.

There will be three gateways: ● Before planning permission is granted – requiring the applicant to submit a “fire statement” with their planning application and the relevant planning authority to consult with the fire and rescue authority. ● Before construction starts – requiring dutyholders to demonstrate how they comply with building regulations by providing full plans and supporting documentation. ● Before occupation begins – requiring dutyholders to hand over building safety information and secure registration and the building safety certificate, providing assurance of risk management, before occupation is allowed.

Importantly, occupation is where the concept of a new “golden thread of information” will feature prominently. Those who have designed and constructed a building will need to ensure all information around safety is passed on to the client,

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Learning from Grenfell

to form the basis of the “safety case” in occupation.

Information handover is a critical feature that IOSH has highlighted.

It will also be essential that whenever a building is renovated, the “golden thread” is updated to reflect changes and ensure those responsible for the management of safety understand the original design intent and any subsequent changes.

The occupation stage also introduces the new “accountable person”, a role which, as well as complying with the building safety certificate and safety case requirements, must name a competent “building safety manager”. Notably, these occupationstage changes will apply to both existing and new builds, following a transition.

It will be the responsibility of a single “building safety regulator” to ensure these new requirements are enforced. They will oversee the design and management of buildings, with a strong focus on ensuring the stricter regime for buildings is effectively enforced, using a range of powers. In addition, there would be “mandatory occurrence reporting”, extended structural safety reporting (to include fire safety engineering) and whistleblowing protections for those raising concerns.

Effective action The question is, do these proposed changes go far enough? One key point to make is that the proposals go further than some of the Hackitt recommendations, such as suggesting a new statutory objective for all those involved in the process to promote building safety, as a cornerstone of a new culture.

And although Dame Judith Hackitt focused on new buildings above 30 m (or ten storeys) in height, the changes being consulted on apply to new buildings 18 m or above (or six storeys). This is quite a significant difference and will mean many more multi-occupancy buildings would be covered by the new system.

That said, the changes would only apply to residential buildings. IOSH has questioned whether this should be widened to other premises, including workplaces because it is vital that people are covered by robust regulation around building safety, both at home and in work settings. We need to consider how workplaces, such as hospitals, prisons, supported and sheltered housing and educational buildings, could and should be included in the new regime.

This is where the call for evidence for the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 can provide useful intelligence. The order provides a regulatory framework for ongoing management of fire safety in non-domestic premises and the common parts of multi-occupied residential buildings.

It obliges those responsible, typically business owners and employers, to carry out fire risk assessments to ensure staff and others who use the building are safe.

This evidence call, which, like the building safety system consultation, is now closed and analysing responses, invited views from those involved on whether it is fit for purpose.

Crucially, through it, the government has aimed to discover whether the order provides sufficient fire safety arrangements for “higher risk workplace buildings” when compared to the reforms proposed in the building safety system consultation for residential premises.

New residential buildings above 18 m (or six storeys) could be covered by the new system

Richard Jones is head of policy and public affairs at IOSH

It also sought views on whether relevant aspects of the residential reforms proposals should be applied to workplace buildings where necessary.

Although it is encouraging to see new consultations, evidence gathering and some green shoots of progress related to Building a Safer Future, there is an enormous amount still to be done.

As the report’s author said herself at IOSH’s 2018 conference last September, she can’t rule out another Grenfell if the changes she recommended aren’t implemented swiftly.

We can’t turn back the clock and stop Grenfell from happening. But we can take action to improve training and skills and support a real culture change to prevent other tragedies and ensure a system that is fit for the future. ●

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The Food and Drink Manufacturing Health and Safety Conference 2019

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Delivering excellence by blending strategy and practice Tuesday 01 – Wednesday 02 October 2019 DoubleTree by Hilton Forest Pines Spa & Golf Resort, Ermine Street, Broughton, DN20 0AQ The IOSH Food and Drink Industries Group invite you to join them at this year’s conference.

Developed in conjunction with the Food and Drink Manufacture Health and Safety Forum, this year’s conference will focus on the theme, Delivering excellence by blending strategy and practice.

Topics include: - An update from the HSE - Leadership guidance - Modern slavery and the protection of vulnerable workers - An insight into Wilko Retail’s health and safety journey

Plus: real-life case studies highlighting ‘why we do what we do’.

For more information, please visit www.iosh.co.uk/fooddrinkconference for regular updates and further conference information.

Sponsorship Lead Sponsor

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If you’re looking to promote your organisation by sponsoring or exhibiting at the conference, please contact Ellen Fazackerley, Events Co-ordinator, on +44 (0)116 257 3207 or email ellen.fazackerley@iosh.com.

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16/08/2019 15/08/2019 16:06 12:04

Construction fire safety

On the front burner The creation of a fire-safe working culture should be a priority for construction firms to prevent lifethreatening incidents on sites

Words: LUCY PRITCHARD

T

Lucy Pritchard is communications officer for the executive committee of IOSH’s construction group

ake a minute to think about who is present on a construction site and the immediate surroundings. There’s everyone in the supply chain, including the client, the principal designer, the principal contractor, designers, subcontractors, suppliers and manufacturers, not forgetting site visitors and workers as well as members of the public in the local vicinity, notably children and the elderly.

Next, take into account all the hazardous substances, environments and processes which are associated with construction projects. With such huge potential for property damage and the loss of human life, it is clear that effective safeguards to prevent fires cannot and should not be overlooked.

The construction industry has improved its safety record over the past decade. Even so, the sector still strives to further reduce the number of accidents and fatalities which not only have an impact on workers’ lives and those of their families, but also create a significant financial burden and reputational damage, even in instances where there have been no reportable incidents on site.

Sharp rise in fires Figures obtained by Construction News (see Figure 1) from the Home Office (bit.ly/2LfovTq) show that the number of deliberately caused fires on construction

sites increased by nearly 43% between 2015 and 2017, despite the rate of new construction work increasing by only 13% (bit.ly/2Z8SUg9).

Health and Safety Executive (HSE) data (see Figure 2) shows that between 2015-16 and 2017-18 three construction workers in the UK were killed and 70 construction workers were injured as a result of fire or explosion (bit.ly/2GstV02).

These fatalities demonstrate why it is so important to put effective safeguards in place to avoid these tragic incidents.

It is worth noting that, although the number of fires on construction sites significantly increased between 2015 and 2017, the number of fire-related incidents (both specified injuries and over-seven-day injuries) that are reportable under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR) has reduced.

Best practice A number of guidance documents have been produced demonstrating best practice in terms of reducing the likelihood of fires on construction sites.

They include the HSE’s guidance in HSG 168 (bit.ly/1SzBLWk), which sets out the key principles of fire risk assessment, guidance on fire precautions and an explanation of the relevant legislation; the Fire Protection Association’s (FPA) construction site fire

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Construction fire safety

prevention on construction sites checklist (bit.ly/2K0nOkk); and the Confederation of Fire Protection Associations in Europe’s (CFPAE) common guidelines (bit.ly/2y7nCua), which provide examples of acceptable solutions, concepts and models.

The purpose of these documents is to prevent as many fires on construction sites as possible and to reduce the severity of those that do occur. Most fires can be prevented by reducing the number of hazards present, in terms of both potential sources of ignition and the fire load.

Measures can be put in place to achieve this which are not onerous and do not result in major changes to the patterns of work or the processes and procedures that are undertaken. If action is taken early on in the design phase of a project, in most cases there will be no impact on the timescale of the construction process. In the UK, the FPA’s document is considered best practice by the insurance industry and if the guidance is not followed this could place the validity of a policy at risk.

Businesses can significantly reduce the likelihood of a fire by taking effective action at several stages.

Figure 1

All construction site fires (and proportion of deliberately caused fires)

450 Deliberately caused fires 375 300 225 150 75 0 Figure 2

Construction industry RIDDOR reportable incidents resulting from fire or explosion UK, 2015/16 – 2017/18 Specified injury Over-7-day injury Fatality

Design phase In the concept and design phase, and as detailed in the Mobile Works Directive 92/57/EEC (bit.ly/2Ytd47e), the client and appointed parties should work together to identify and eliminate hazards and reduce the likely risk from them where elimination is not reasonably practicable. This includes all potential fire hazards which may be identifiable at the design stage.

At this stage of the construction process the following should be considered: ● the use of non-combustible and non-flammable materials to reduce the fire load ● materials and methods that avoid the need for hot work on site ● design details that prevent the passage of smoke and flames up through a building during the construction phase ● design of access routes to enable contractors to construct buildings in such a way as to retain safe evacuation routes during the construction phase ● designing fire-fighting systems and fire alarm systems to allow for early use.

18

15

10

1 1 4

7

2 4 2

1

Exposure to an explosion 2015/16

Exposure to fire 2015/16 ● ● ●

Construction phase The construction phase is sometimes referred to as the “build phase” in recognised industry guidance, and therefore you may well come across statements such as: “During the build phase the nominated responsible person must take such general fire precautions as will ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the safety of his employees and, in relation to persons who are not his employees, take such general precautions as may reasonably be required in such circumstances.”

In practice this means that the responsible person or contractor should: ● ensure a fire-safe working culture is actively promoted at all times ● ensure one or more competent persons are appointed to assist the responsible person in carrying out their duties ● ensure they follow all procedures and precautionary measures identified in the site fire safety plan and make sure that these are clearly understood and complied with by all on site

All site fires

● ●

●

Exposure to an explosion 2014/17

Exposure to fire 2016/17

1 1 1

5

Exposure to an explosion 2017/18

Exposure to fire 2017/18

make sure permit systems are in place for any hot work required on site and monitor compliance ensure all fire alarm systems are tested regularly as well as other smoke and heat detectors make sure all emergency exits and escape routes are maintained and free from obstructions and that all emergency lighting is functional liaise with local fire and rescue, including any site visits by the emergency services as required maintain a regime for fire protection equipment, a written record of fire safety training and arrangements/procedures for calling the emergency services make sure in the event of a fire that the duties for safe evacuation (see box, p 49) are executed, and all staff and visitors report to assembly points.

Specialist environments Consideration should also be given to how specialist environments on construction sites such as confined spaces are dealt with.

In a confined space, certain activities such as operating plant and refuelling (especially with petrol) should not take place. Equally, refuelling should not take place on scaffolds or escape routes. Refuelling should take place only in the open air or in wellventilated spaces away from ignition sources and bulk

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Construction fire safety

flammable liquid storage tanks should be bunded to current standards.

The use of portable petrol-fuelled generators indoors, or in partially enclosed areas to provide a power source for heating, lighting and other equipment, can put operators at risk of serious illness and death from carbon monoxide poisoning.

This hazard is present from the exhaust fumes of any internal combustion engine, and care needs to be taken to avoid the use of other equipment such as disc cutters, chain saws, floor polishers and pressure washers.

All of this requires the development of an eective fire-safe working culture. This is where everyone is empowered to make sure that the construction site is safe and as free from fire risk as possible. The culture’s creation starts at the design stage and is maintained throughout the life of the construction project and extends to ensuring that final delivery is completed and handed over safely.

The seven steps to creating a fire-safe working culture are as follows: â—? Reduce risks at source: wherever possible design out fire risks in the early stages of the design process â—? Communicate: make sure everyone on-site, including visitors, is aware of the emergency procedures and liaises with the local emergency services â—? Provide training: train, train and train so that, in the event of an incident, people do not rise to the occasion but fall to the level of their training

Construction site evacuation In early September, IOSH is due to publish new research on construction site evacuation safety, speciďŹ cally from high-rise buildings.

Researchers at the University of Greenwich, funded by IOSH, examined a number of areas, including how construction site workers perceive the risk associated with working on high-rises and their knowledge of evacuation procedures, with a view to improving safety in this area.

The study was commissioned because of the soaring scale of high-rise building construction, which means a large number of workers are exposed to demanding conditions and the potential for large-scale evacuation.

The research will be available to view at: bit.ly/2K6E0SB.

â—?

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Lead by example: make sure that the senior people on-site constantly do the right thing and role-model the behaviour you would like everyone to exhibit Develop a positive reporting process for fire hazards: make sure everyone knows how to report hazards and is empowered to deal with issues they identify on site Involve everybody: fire safety is everybody’s responsibility – make sure you all play your part in keeping yourself and others safe Put your plans into action: it’s not enough just to risk assess – you need to make sure you put your plans into action and continuously monitor to make sure they are still fit for purpose throughout the life of the construction project. �

NEW

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Health & Safety NVQ specialist provider

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With a CFIOSH pilot to help you navigate through to completion, you always pass inspection.

SEPTEMBER 2019 49

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21/08/2019 12:22

Training

All fired up Virtual reality technology can be used as a tool to enhance employees’ fire safety awareness

Words: ALEXANDER PADHAISKI

T

he Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 places a legal duty on employers to “provide information, instruction and training to employees about fire precautions in the workplace” (bit.ly/2K04qnz).

Leaving an organisation’s legal requirements to one side, however, training is important because it helps to raise awareness around fire safety and also better prepares employees for potential incidents in the workplace, thereby reducing the likelihood of property damage and helping to save lives. In recent years, many businesses have sought to tap into technological advances, most notably virtual reality, and incorporate it within their training programmes.

Virtual reality (VR) is a revolutionary development that makes use of gaming technologies to recreate a digital environment. Using a head-mounted display, also known as a VR headset, the technology immerses the end user in an alternative reality.

There are two major types of VR solutions, which provide completely different types of experiences.

In its simplest form, there is 360 VR which provides a three-degrees-of-freedom experience.

Typically, this is limited to three rotational movements and allows the end user to see only what’s around them, with very limited interaction. The other type employs digitally modelled environments, which provide six degrees of freedom. This offers the end user complete freedom of movement, complete with greater interactivity and immersion.

The technology tends to be used as part of a wider training packaging and enables employers to build on existing fire safety practices. As a training tool it opens up new possibilities to enhance learning and knowledge retention. Employers can recreate real-life scenarios through training exercises, and transmit visual and auditory information that evokes real-life emotions, albeit in a safe space.

Employee understanding of the fire triangle model is a key element of training. By using VR technology, trainers can provide a visual illustration of the three elements a fire needs to ignite – heat, fuel and an oxidising agent – and then offer trainees practical experience on how to prevent or extinguish a fire.

The technology can also be used to demonstrate how to control different fuel sources, how fires can spread and the best containment methods, such as fire doors.

A trainee can practise how to identify and use the correct fire extinguisher depending on the fuel source, which arguably would aid an employee in the real

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Training

VR can be used to train up fire wardens, providing them with an opportunity to run through the evacuation steps world should an incident occur in the workplace. This ability to test a trainee’s response in an emergency in a safe environment is invaluable.

Using simulations, trainees can be put through different scenarios and the exercises can be used to explain what the best actions are to take. For example, VR can be used to train up fire wardens, providing them with an opportunity to run through the evacuation steps they need to follow in the event of emergency (see box below).

Another benefit of using VR technology is the way it can be used to demonstrate the key elements of fire safety legislation in a stimulating environment, which arguably will help enhance retention of core fire safety principles. On this note, the technology is ideal for undertaking fire risk assessments. Trainers can recreate a wide range of fire hazards, enabling trainees to practise different scenarios to better prepare themselves for potential incidents.

The technology can be used to cover important areas such as housekeeping, fire detection and warning systems, different types of fire extinguishers, evacuation routes, fire signs and emergency lighting.

VR can also be applied in sector-specific

Evacuation training

Alexander Padhaiski is co-founder and chief operating officer at The Parallel

The Parallel has used VR technology as part of its training for fire wardens. The session begins with the trainee fire warden being placed in a virtual office space where a virtual fire safety coach outlines the fire safety procedures in the event of an incident.

The session then outlines what happens when a fire occurs and is left to spread. After this, the trainee is placed back in the office space. Using what they have learnt, their task is to evacuate colleagues following the instructions they received earlier from the virtual fire safety coach.

Petrol station evacuation

In this case study, trainees took part in an evacuation exercise at a petrol station. The oil and gas company client said that the simulated environment created for the training exercise had to be a carbon copy of the real-life petrol station. When the trainees undertook the exercise, the training identified that one of the fire hazard signs had not been placed in a position that was visible enough for trainees to spot, which caused confusion and delayed the evacuation completion time. Feedback enabled the client to move the hazard sign’s position, potentially saving lives in the event of a real-life emergency situation.

environments. A case in point is the oil and gas sector (see box above).

If companies are planning to use VR technology as part of their training programmes, there are some important practical considerations to take into account.

The creation of a simulated environment through a head-mounted display will have a physiological, psychological and physical impact on the end user.

It takes time to adapt to VR scenarios and if the content is not of good enough quality, then it may cause dizziness.

To guard against this, companies need to ensure that the content development process follows the best industry practices and the graphical fidelity meets the required standard. It is also important to ensure that VR technology is integrated into existing training processes correctly and effectively; otherwise it won’t achieve the results that managers had originally intended it for.

One key advantage of using this technology is that it does allow companies to streamline their business processes and reduce training costs.

First, VR significantly reduces the cost of training employees at a designated facility. Practical sessions can be held within the organisation’s own office.

Second, since VR content is entirely digital, its applications can be integrated with existing management systems. This allows the trainer to record each session and review past records, which helps to identify employees who may require additional training. Alternatively, they can review exercises and determine whether future training requires modification.

Most importantly, VR provides every user with practical hands-on fire safety experience, which arguably improves knowledge retention and potentially saves lives in the event of fire. ●

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21/08/2019 12:59

Lexicon is for

risk homeostasis

Recap our A to Z of core safety and health terms ioshmagazine.com/type/lexicon

Words: BRIDGET LEATHLEY

I

Swedish road users took unusually cautious adjustment actions, which in turn caused an unusual dip in the accident rate

n his 1879 publication Notes on Railroad Accidents, Charles Francis Adams describes how a rail company chose not to implement a block protection system because it feared that “those in charge of trains and tracks, who have been educated into a reliance upon it under ordinary circumstances, will, from force of habit if nothing else, go on relying upon it, and disaster will surely follow”.

One hundred years later, psychologist Gerald Wilde published a paper in the journal Risk Analysis (1982) which established the term “risk homeostasis” in the safety vocabulary.

Wilde stated “that a person while driving a vehicle, while involved in an industrial task or recreational sport, or while making decisions in any other behaviour domain that may have implications for health or safety, is acting in a way that may be understood as a homeostatically controlled self-regulation process. At any moment of time the instantaneously experienced level of risk is compared with the level of risk the individual wishes to take, and decisions to alter ongoing behaviour will be made whenever these two levels are discrepant.”

John Adams of University College London refers to Wilde’s ideas to argue that rather than making us safer, seat belts and motorcycle helmets have made people drive more dangerously. In an article in the journal Safety Science, published in 1994, Adams argues: “Might you drive a little bit more carefully if you were deprived of the protection of your seat belt?

Might you brake slightly more gently or corner a wee bit more slowly if your children were not safely secured in the back seat?” Adams supports his argument with statistics. Between 1988 and 1990 “there was an increase of almost 10% in the numbers of children killed in rear seats”. In 1989 it became compulsory for children aged 14 and under to wear seat belts in the UK. Similar arguments have been made for other safety features in cars, from anti-lock braking and airbags to adaptive cruise control and intelligent speed adaptation. By contrast, in a 2014 article published on the blog site Safety Risk, Wilde suggested that the drop in the accident rate when road traffic in Sweden was switched from left- to right-hand traffic in 1967 was because “the perceived level of risk surged to an unusual level that far exceeded the target level of risk.

As a result, Swedish road users took unusually

cautious adjustment actions, which in turn caused an unusual dip in the accident rate” (bit.ly/2SE0Wv2).

Homeostasis in biology refers to the tendency for warm-blooded animals to be able to maintain a consistent core temperature of 37°C, regardless of the external temperature. Similarly, a nondiabetic will maintain a safe blood sugar level.

Homeostasis relies on a feedback loop. The body detects a change in temperature or blood sugar level and uses corrective mechanisms. You sweat or shiver, you adjust glucose or insulin.

In the same 1982 publication (bit.ly/2Ydt9ip), Wilde admits: “Whether the ensuing behaviour will have the desired result of re-establishing equilibrium between the target level and the experienced level of risk depends upon the individual’s perceptual, decisional, and executional skills.”

We do not have the skills to judge risk with the accuracy of a thermostat. The Swedes overcompensated. We don’t drive faster with a seat belt on, with the anti-lock braking system engaged or with an airbag in a way that maintains a precise lifetime risk of dying in a road accident of 1 in 240. We assume that provided we behave “safely enough” our risk is zero. A safety feature might allow us to feel we can drive closer to another vehicle or faster, but homeostasis is not the best term for this.

An alternative to risk homeostasis appears in the Handbook of Traffic Psychology, published in 2011. Professor Ray Fuller’s task-capability model argues that routine driving includes a margin of safety between task and capability, so that the driver can respond when demands suddenly increase. If the task demands are reduced, for example by using cruise control, there can be a temptation to use a mobile phone because the driver feels they have the capability; they are not calculating the risk.

Although it is important to be aware of unintended consequences when introducing any change to the workplace, and to consider risk compensation as part of the risk assessment of human behaviour, perhaps it is time to put the term risk homeostasis to rest. Many studies have shown that safety benefits are rarely completely cancelled out by overconfidence in new safety measures. Making people more aware of their need to maintain a task-capability gap could be a more useful approach. ●

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Off duty Alex Guild

CMIOSH

Process safety team lead, Chevron

I’

Always take more fuel than you need – you can only have too much fuel if you’re on fire

ve been interested in flying since I was a boy. At the end of my second year at university I joined its air squadron and clocked up 45 hours’ flying over two years. However, you don’t get a licence at the end.

I was offered an RAF commission as an engineer – my degree was in electrical engineering – but not a flying commission, so I took a job with Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI).

Life took over and flying went on the back burner for 17 years. Then I started working for the oil firm Chevron as a technical safety engineer. We were living in Houston, Texas, when my wife suggested I complete my private pilot’s licence. After I did, I got my instrument rating. This allows you to fly in lowvisibility conditions using the aircraft’s instruments to navigate, rather than navigating by what you can see. Next, I secured my commercial licence and then, because I’d always wanted to fly twin-engine planes, my rating to fly multi-engine aircraft.

The only thing left to do was train to be a flight instructor. I wasn’t sure whether I would have the patience but gave it a go. It’s tough as you have to learn so much; to teach pilots, you have to know more than they do! So, you learn about aerodynamics, how aircraft are built, and in a lot more in detail than when you’re doing your other ratings. I got my instructor rating and spent my final year in the US teaching, and loved it.

Moving back to Scotland I converted all my licences to UK ones. Then a friend told me he had an idea to start a flight school so – working around my day job – we set one up in Aberdeen. After five successful years, my friend decided to move on, and I now run it with another friend. I’ll be 53 this year and my plan is to retire from my day job in the next few years and focus on instructing.

Less than 1% of the population has a pilot’s licence, so you are part of a unique group; it’s something different. Flying gives you so much

Read about other safety professionals’ pastimes ioshmagazine.com/type/duty

freedom: I’ve flown over the white cliffs of Dover to the First World War battlefields in France. I do a lot of instrument flying because of poor weather conditions. Learning to fly by instrument is probably the biggest intellectual leap you make in training. It’s all about precision and procedure.

The most enjoyable part of teaching is the buzz you get when someone “gets it”. Landings are a bit like riding a bike: it suddenly falls into place.

It’s always special when someone you’ve taught does their first solo flight and you go to the control tower to watch.

Teaching never gets boring because you’re always concentrating. Someone might be having a bad day so you have to be able to identify and anticipate any problems early and take action. Every day is different because everyone has different learning styles. You also have to be on your guard to never cut corners, for example with your pre-flight checks. You have to model the behaviours you want people to learn.

My day job definitely influences my approach to flying. Aviation has error-tolerant systems with checks and balances and lots of built-in redundancy, but it’s also unforgiving. As in the oil industry, it is important to remember that a pound of prevention is worth a tonne of cure. Many incidents have their genesis in the planning stage, so attention to detail in planning a flight is vital. I teach people to plan the route, think about the weather, and always take more fuel than they need – you can only have too much fuel if you’re on fire. We manage risk: it’s not about absolute safety. In the air, you need to consider human factors and look also at risk from a dynamic viewpoint. If the weather is deteriorating, divert and spend the night in a hotel. I try to give trainees the ability to recognise, identify and reduce risk.

Lots of safety approaches in aviation are relevant to the wider industry. “Crew resource management” is about involving the wider cohort of a crew or workplace: using all the resources you have available and listening to people’s views – including the more junior ones in the hierarchy. You encourage people to speak up and offer constructive alternatives.

There have been many highlights. Three years ago, I did a bush flying course in Johannesburg.

The next year my wife and I went back for our 25th wedding anniversary and did a flying safari: we rented a plane and flew through Botswana and Zimbabwe. We had to chase giraffes off a runway!

I’d encourage anyone who’s interested to give flying a go. Most people who come to us are absolute beginners; lots go on to do commercial flying. The destination – gaining a licence – is important, but the journey is too: learning to fly is a huge amount of fun. ●

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Recruitment

To advertise your vacancy, contact iosh-recruitment@redactive.co.uk

Ask a recruiter It is important to have a set of questions ready to ask at the end of an interview. Which questions should you ask, and which are best avoided?

Most interviewers will often wrap up by asking “do you have any questions for me?” Although this response will come naturally for some, most of us worry about what to ask and how we can use this opportunity to our advantage.

Asking the right questions is important as it highlights your interest in the role and company and provides an opportunity to prove how well you have researched the organisation. Similarly, not only do questions act as a platform to better your own representation, but they also give you a chance to gain more information and a better understanding of the role.

Preparing three or more questions will be beneficial as you may find that one or two of these are answered during the interview. Be careful not to ask too many questions as this may suggest you have not prepared. However, not asking any will cause the interviewer to presume you have little or no interest.

It is also important to be aware of time. If the interviewer’s body language suggests that they are keen to wrap up, be careful not to ask too many questions.

Remember, there will always be other opportunities to ask them at a later date, whether this is through a recruiter or direct with the hiring manager.

Questions such as “what are you looking to achieve with this role?” will highlight your interest in the position and show your long-term commitment to helping the company to grow. Another good question to ask is “what do you think is the most important skill that a candidate needs to be successful in this role?”. This is an important question because the interviewer’s answer will lay the foundations for a response that could make you the perfect candidate.

If appropriate, you can use this to your advantage by giving examples of when you have demonstrated this

particular skill throughout your career.

You should avoid asking anything that relates to compensation and try to focus solely on questions relating to the role and the organisation. For example, “what are the hours?”, “what is the salary?” and “how much holiday will I get?” are all questions that will suggest your interest lies predominantly with the benefits and pay, rather than the position itself.

Also, be wary of asking questions that may generate a negative response – for example, asking about HSE incidents or loss of contracts that you may have seen whilst doing your pre-interview research.

Preparation and planning are the two key components to a successful interview, particularly when it comes to asking the right questions. If you have an interview coming up, be sure to do your research and be prepared. Good luck!

Emily Dainton is a consultant at Irwin & Colton, a specialist health, safety and environment recruitment company.

E: emily.dainton@irwinandcolton.com T: 01923 432 633

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Recruitment

To advertise your vacancy, contact iosh-recruitment@redactive.co.uk

EH&S/Facilities Manager Eastbourne, East Sussex c. £40,000 per annum plus bonus HMD is the birthplace of environmentally friendly Sealless Pumps and we are proud of our impressive track record in workplace safety!

Reporting directly to the General Manager, you will be responsible for managing all aspects of Health & Safety and site facilities management including capital planning. We currently hold ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 accreditation and are aiming for ISO 45001 accreditation in 2019.

The successful candidate will be: • Educated to degree level in Health and Safety • A Chartered or Graduate Member of IOSH or working towards • Fully aware of environmental laws and practices and sustainability • Experienced in Facilities Management • Experienced in ISO 14001 and 45001 • Capital planning desirable • Training/education qualification highly desirable For an informal discussion please contact the current EH&S Advisor, Hilary Charlton on 01323 452095 or to apply please send in your CV to Alexandra.spurgeon@sundyne.com

www.sundyne.com

www.hmdkontroinfo.com

,ĞĂůƚŚ ĂŶĚ ^ĂĨĞƚLJ KĸĐĞƌ

'ŽƉƐĂůů ,ŽƵƐĞ &Ăƌŵ͕ dǁLJĐƌŽƐƐ͕ ƚŚĞƌƐƚŽŶĞ͕ sϵ ϯWW tƌŝŐŚƚƐ ŽĨ dǁLJĐƌŽƐƐ >ƚĚ ĂƌĞ ůŽŽŬŝŶŐ ƚŽ ĂƉƉŽŝŶƚ Ă ,ĞĂůƚŚ ĂŶĚ ^ĂĨĞƚLJ KĸĐĞƌ͕ ƚŽ ĂƐƐŝƐƚ ƚŚĞ ,ĞĂůƚŚ ĂŶĚ ^ĂĨĞƚLJ DĂŶĂŐĞƌ ŝŶ ƚŚĞ ŽƉĞƌĂƟŽŶ ĂŶĚ ŵĂŝŶƚĞŶĂŶĐĞ ŽĨ ƚŚĞ /^KϰϱϬϬϭ ŚĞĂůƚŚ ĂŶĚ ƐĂĨĞƚLJ ƐLJƐƚĞŵ ĨŽƌ ƚƌĂŶƐƉŽƌƚ͕ ƌĞĐLJĐůŝŶŐ ĂŶĚ ĂŐƌŝĐƵůƚƵƌĂů ďƵƐŝŶĞƐƐ͘ dŚĞ ƐƵĐĐĞƐƐĨƵů ĐĂŶĚŝĚĂƚĞ ǁŝůů ďĞ ƌĞƋƵŝƌĞĚ ƚŽ͗ • ƵŶĚĞƌƚĂŬĞ ƐŝƚĞ ǀŝƐŝƚƐ ŽǀĞƌ ĂŶ ŽƉĞƌĂƟŽŶĂů ĂƌĞĂ ĐŽǀĞƌŝŶŐ ƚŚĞ DŝĚůĂŶĚƐ ĂŶĚ ĂƐƚ ŶŐůŝĂ • ĐĂƌƌLJ ŽƵƚ ƉƌŽĂĐƟǀĞ ƚĂƐŬƐ ƐƵĐŚ ĂƐ ĂƵĚŝƚƐ ĂŶĚ ƐŝƚĞ ŝŶƐƉĞĐƟŽŶƐ • ĚĞůŝǀĞƌ ŶĞǁ ĞŵƉůŽLJĞĞ ƐĂĨĞƚLJ ŝŶĚƵĐƟŽŶƐ ŝŶ ŽƌĚĞƌ ƚŽ ƉƌŽǀŝĚĞ Ă ƐŽůŝĚ ƵŶĚĞƌƐƚĂŶĚŝŶŐ ŽĨ ƚŚĞ ĐŽŵƉĂŶLJ ƐƚĂŶĚĂƌĚƐ ĞdžƉĞĐƚĞĚ ŽĨ Ăůů tƌŝŐŚƚƐ ŽĨ Twycross Ltd employees • ĐĂƌƌLJ ŽƵƚ ŝŶĐŝĚĞŶƚ ŝŶǀĞƐƟŐĂƟŽŶƐ ĂŶĚ ƉƌŽĚƵĐĞ ƉƌĞĐŝƐĞ ĂŶĚ ƟŵĞůLJ ƌĞƉŽƌƚƐ ǁŝƚŚ ƌŽŽƚ ĐĂƵƐĂƟŽŶ ;ϱzƐͿ • ĂĚǀŝƐĞ ŽŶ ĐŽŶƚƌŽů ŵĞĂƐƵƌĞƐ ƚŽ ƉƌĞǀĞŶƚ ŝŶĐŝĚĞŶƚ ƌĞŽĐĐƵƌƌĞŶĐĞ ĂŶĚ ĐƌĞĂƚĞ ƐĂĨĞƚLJ ŵĂƚĞƌŝĂůƐ ƚŽ ĐŽŵŵƵŶŝĐĂƚĞ ĮŶĚŝŶŐƐ ĂŶĚ ĐŽŶƚƌŽůƐ ǁŝƚŚ ƚŚĞ ŽƉĞƌĂƟŽŶĂů ƚĞĂŵ ƚŽ ĂƐƐŝƐƚ ƵŶĚĞƌƐƚĂŶĚŝŶŐ • ƉƌŽĚƵĐĞ ƌĞƉŽƌƚƐ ĂŶĚ ƉƌĞƐĞŶƚ ŝŶĨŽƌŵĂƟŽŶ ƚŽ ƐĞŶŝŽƌ ŵĞŵďĞƌƐ ŽĨ tƌŝŐŚƚƐ ŽĨ dǁLJĐƌŽƐƐ >ƚĚ ŵĂŶĂŐĞŵĞŶƚ ƚĞĂŵ ĂŶĚ ƚŽ ŽƵƌ ĐƵƐƚŽŵĞƌƐ ƐƐĞŶƟĂů ƌĞƋƵŝƌĞŵĞŶƚƐ͗ • E K^, 'ĞŶĞƌĂů ĞƌƟĮĐĂƚĞ ŝŶ KĐĐƵƉĂƟŽŶĂů ,ĞĂůƚŚ ĂŶĚ ^ĂĨĞƚLJ ;Žƌ ĐƵƌƌĞŶƚůLJ ǁŽƌŬŝŶŐ ƚŽǁĂƌĚƐͿ • ĂďůĞ ƚŽ ƵƐĞ DŝĐƌŽƐŽŌ KĸĐĞ ƐƵŝƚĞ ʹ tŽƌĚ͕ džĐĞů͕ WŽǁĞƌƉŽŝŶƚ ĂŶĚ KƵƚůŽŽŬ • ĂďůĞ ƚŽ ǁŽƌŬ ŽŶ ŽǁŶ ŝŶŝƟĂƟǀĞ Žƌ ĂƐ ƉĂƌƚ ŽĨ Ă ůĂƌŐĞƌ ƚĞĂŵ • ĨƵůů h< ĚƌŝǀŝŶŐ ůŝĐĞŶĐĞ džƉĞƌŝĞŶĐĞ ǁŝƚŚŝŶ Ă ĨĂƌŵŝŶŐ͕ ƌĞĐLJĐůŝŶŐ ĂŶĚͬŽƌ ƚƌĂŶƐƉŽƌƚ ƐĞĐƚŽƌ ǁŽƵůĚ ďĞ ďĞŶĞĮĐŝĂů ĂůƚŚŽƵŐŚ ŶŽƚ ĞƐƐĞŶƟĂů ĂƐ ƚƌĂŝŶŝŶŐ ĂŶĚ ŬŶŽǁůĞĚŐĞ ǁŝůů ďĞ ƉƌŽǀŝĚĞĚ ƚŽ ƚŚĞ ƌŝŐŚƚ ĐĂŶĚŝĚĂƚĞ͘ dŚŝƐ ŝƐ Ă ĨƵůůͲƟŵĞ ƉŽƐŝƟŽŶ ƚLJƉŝĐĂůůLJ ƚŽ ďĞ ĐĂƌƌŝĞĚ ŽƵƚ DŽŶĚĂLJ ƚŽ &ƌŝĚĂLJ͕ ĂůƚŚŽƵŐŚ ŽĐĐĂƐŝŽŶĂů ^ĂƚƵƌĚĂLJƐ ĂŶĚ ĂŶƟƐŽĐŝĂů ŚŽƵƌƐ ŵĂLJ ďĞ ƌĞƋƵŝƌĞĚ ƚŽ ŵĞĞƚ ƚŚĞ ĚĞŵĂŶĚƐ ŽĨ ƚŚĞ ƌŽůĞ ĂŶĚ ƚŚĞ ďƵƐŝŶĞƐƐ͘ ^ĂůĂƌLJ ǁŝůů ďĞ ĐŽŵŵĞŶƐƵƌĂƚĞ ǁŝƚŚ ĞdžƉĞƌŝĞŶĐĞ ĂŶĚ ƋƵĂůŝĮĐĂƟŽŶƐ͘ :Žď ƚLJƉĞ͗ ĨƵůůͲƟŵĞ ʹ ϰϳ ŚŽƵƌƐ ƉĞƌ ǁĞĞŬ ĂǀĞ &Žƌ ŵŽƌĞ ŝŶĨŽƌŵĂƟŽŶ͕ Žƌ ƚŽ ĂƉƉůLJ ĨŽƌ ƚŚŝƐ ƌŽůĞ͕ ƉůĞĂƐĞ ĐŽŶƚĂĐƚ ŚƌΛƉĂǁƌŝŐŚƚĂŶĚƐŽŶƐ͘ĐŽ͘ƵŬ

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HSE RECRUITMENT IN PARTNERSHIP WITH IOSH CONFERENCE 16th and 17th September – ICC Birmingham

How can you gain a strategic edge in a competitive market place?

Are you looking for your dream job, or perfect next hire?

Do you want tips on how to secure that promotion?

For the second year running, HSE Recruitment are joining forces with IOSH and www. healthandsafety-jobs.co.uk at the IOSH Conference, to present a comprehensive “careers zone” for all attendees.

The HSE Recruitment careers zone will offer specific careers advice workshops, as well as daily seminars on subjects including; • The changing world of work • Diversity and inclusion • Your personal branding journey

The zone will also give you the opportunity to have a professional Linkedin headshot taken, as well as advice and support from IOSH on your professional journey to fellowship (including a sneak peek at their careers hub launching next year).

To book a career consultation, please contact info@hserecruitment.co.uk or join the conversation on social media, by tweeting @hse_jobs or following us on Linkedin!

CONTACT US: 0121 454 5000 info@hserecruitment.co.uk

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“I can recite all of the Management Regulations” Unemployed safety consultant

As a health and safety practitioner, you need to understand the law, and be able to apply it to real life. You need to be able to critically analyse existing activities, and implement effective and efficient controls. You need to be able to research new hazards and situations and develop solutions. You don’t need to be able to simply recite things. That’s why NCRQ don’t use exams.

TM

An assurance that holders can “do” health and safety, not just talk about it. Qualifications for real life.

Visit us at www.ncrq.org.uk

Call us on 01244 956990

Email us at enquiries@ncrq.org.uk

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